Alter Ergo 2

Undercurrents

by ELG

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/ase/elg/alter02.php
Summary: Basically it's Jack and Daniel in an ice cavern together having lost their memories.

He had no idea who he was.

In fact he had no idea what he looked like. He seemed to be tall, around six foot two; his physique suggested he worked out regularly because he had no fat and some pretty good muscle tone, not bulging, or anything, but definitely there. He'd pulled out a few hairs and been disconcerted to find they were grey. Was he old then? He didn't feel old? Well, his knees maybe, they didn't appear to be in the first flush of youth, but apart from that he felt pretty fit. He wondered if he was a good person or a bad person. If he had a family. If he loved someone. If he was a murderer. He felt as though all those things were true and yet not true. He decided he couldn't be nameless even if he was faceless for the moment, unable to see his own reflection in the unfeeling ice wall in front of him. He grabbed a name at random. John. That would do. It almost felt as if it could be his own name but he wasn't going to chase the echo of his own identity. It was gone. A name he hoped people would have said with affection in the past was buried somewhere too deep for him to find it or else erased like writing on a blackboard. The present began here and the past was a locked room he couldn't get into. For the foreseeable future he would think of himself as 'John'.

And for the moment perhaps all he really needed to know was that he was a prisoner. Somewhere underground where there were crystals in the ice for which he had to dig. He suspected that putting a pickaxe in his hands might be a decision the guards were going to regret later, but for the moment he was keeping his head down and doing what everyone else was doing, standing in front of the ice wall with a chain around one ankle, swinging that pick into the ice.

As he worked he was taking stock of his surroundings. Six guards, with guns, but a large area to patrol and tricky because of all those little ice chambers. This was a fairly large cavern compared with some of the others. There had to be exits beyond, places the guards went to and from. The food came from somewhere, such as it was. Going by the dull eyes around him, everyone else had lost their memories as well. Of course, the ones who'd been here the longest would have new memories. Their memories would begin and end with this underground network of ice caverns; the mush they served as food; the cold bite of the chain around the ankle. Those were the prisoners who looked dangerous. The ones who had forgotten the ties that bound them to the rest of humanity; the memories that might have softened them; the people who might have reached them. They were like prisoners everywhere; they'd stopped believing they were ever getting out of here and with that resignation had come a dangerous acceptance. And when you believed you were going to spend the rest of your life digging for crystals in an ice cavern you started looking around for ways to make it bearable.

At the moment a lot of the hardened prisoners were looking at one of the other new arrivals and John could just imagine the ways they were hoping that boy was going to make their lives better.

He'd been trying not to notice him because he didn't want to get involved in any one else's problems, but the kid looked so damned - dazed. He kept wincing and putting a hand up to his head, obviously chasing memories that just weren't there any more; making his brain hurt with the effort and achieving nothing. He swung the pick clumsily too and John winced in sympathy as it reverberated against the ice clearly jarring him all the way up the shoulder. He wasn't sure of the younger man's age but he looked much too young and fresh-faced to be unprotected in a place like this. He had short light brown hair and by the way he was blinking, John suspected he probably usually wore glasses. His eyes were very large and very blue and he looked intelligent. The way he was deliberately not making eye contact with anyone else suggested he was aware of the vulnerability of his situation. John suspected there might be some rapid thought going on in that handsome head, but rat on a wheel stuff, trying to find a way out that didn't exist while fighting suppressed panic. The young prisoner had a good physique and was only a couple of inches shorter than John, but he didn't look as though he knew how to fight. There was a clumsiness to the way he moved which suggested a degree of separation from his body. Someone who lived in his head too much; someone who would try to find the words to defuse a situation that in a place like this could only be solved by brute strength.

John was trying not to think about the young prisoner; trying to tell himself he was making too much out of nothing. Jumping to all these conclusions when the guy could be a black belt in karate, but the impression persisted that the guy was all but defenseless in a place where his looks were going to get him in serious trouble and his brains weren't going to be able to supply an escape route.

Not my problem, he told himself sternly. Determinedly, John focused on the ice wall in front of him, the pick in his hand, the crystals he needed to mine if he wanted to eat at the next rest break.

He'd sunk into a kind of trance state where he just swung the pick, hooked out the block of ice, searched for a crystal, swung the pick, hooked out the block of ice, searched for a crystal. Thinking hurt too much, both physically and mentally. Chasing memories that weren't there any more was an exercise in futility he just didn't want to start. And there was no point in thinking about how much his muscles ached, the singing pain in his shoulder, down his spine. He could do this. He suspected he'd done this before because his body seemed to have fallen into this rhythm very naturally. His hands weren't particularly callused so he clearly didn't do this for a living, but he had done it at some point. Perhaps he'd been a prisoner before. He felt as though he knew more than he should about prisons.

The grunt of pain jolted him out of his work trance, and he looked around in surprise. The young prisoner was pressed face first against the ice wall, eyes closed as he obviously gasped for breath. The guard was standing over him, a weapon in his hand. By the way the young prisoner had a hand clasped to his back, John gathered the guard had just jabbed him hard in the kidney with his gun.

"You rest when I tell you to rest and not before." The guard growled it ominously.

The prisoner nodded, clearly not able to trust himself to speak yet. He made to straighten up and the guard immediately slammed the side of the gun across the prisoner's shoulders, knocking him back into the ice wall. "Do you understand?"

"I - understand." The young prisoner responded breathlessly.

As the prisoner turned his head to the side, trying to breath around the pain of those two blows, John saw the expressions chase themselves across that surprisingly mobile countenance: resentment, fear, and - surprise. A hint of shocked bewilderment that someone had just hurt him so senselessly. John grimaced. He had a feeling this kid didn't know the score at all. Which made leaving him to his fate that much harder.

The guard grabbed the prisoner by the hair and jerked his head back. His voice was soft. "Like I told you yesterday, you have to mine six crystals in every work period. If you don't, you don't eat. Got it?"

The prisoner swallowed and nodded.

The guard threw him back against the ice. "Get back to work."

John swung his own pick so that as the guard turned to look in his direction all he would see was a man completely intent on his work. He felt the guard's gaze rest on him for a moment suspiciously and then the guard was moving off towards the next cavern.

He glanced across at the young prisoner and saw that he was struggling. He handled the pick badly and he could almost feel the pain still radiating up from that bruised kidney. John opened his mouth to ask if he was okay and then closed it again. Not his problem. This kid was definitely not his problem.

John swung the pick and it sank in deep, tugging out a good sized block of ice as he yanked it out of the wall; a crystal glimmered in the center of the block and he hacked it out with a few swings of the pick, tossing it into the basket provided. He'd glanced across at the young prisoner before he could stop himself and saw he had only a couple of crystals in his basket. Like the guard kept telling them all, you had to have six to get fed and the guy had missed the last meal because of it. He just couldn't seem to get the hang of the action. He was swinging the pick and it was biting into the ice, but then he was having to tug it back out again without really dislodging anything. He didn't seem to have any real idea how to do what he was doing and he couldn't seem to learn. Lousy coordination and near-sightedness were a bad combination in his situation. John winced as the younger prisoner jarred his shoulder again, tugging at the pickaxe to pull it back out of the wall without dislodging more than a few ice flakes.

"Aim lower," John said to him quietly.

The prisoner started and flashed him a wary look over his shoulder. "What?"

John gathered he must look reasonably mean because the kid was clearly scared of him. He'd probably noticed John looking his way and thought it was for a whole different set of reasons. John moved a little closer, swinging his pick into the wall so it looked as though he was working. "You're aiming too high which is why you're not getting any weight behind each swing. Aim lower. See?" He demonstrated and the younger prisoner gave him another wary glance then tried to mimic his action. The swing was still clumsy but it was a little lower and it didn't jar his shoulder this time.

John swung the pick into the wall again, jerking his wrist to pull a block of ice out of the wall. It fell to the ground and crumbled, revealing a crystal.

John bent and picked it up then after a fractional hesitation tossed it into the younger prisoner's basket.

Another wary glance from oversized blue eyes. "You don't have to do that."

"It's okay. I've got more than you." John met his gaze. "And don't worry, I'm not expecting any payment in kind."

The sound of the guard approaching forced him to turn his attention back to the ice wall in front of him. He made sure he was swinging with a will as the guy approached. This one was way too quick to slam that gun into your back if he thought you were working too slowly. But as the man's gaze raked over them all, John was aware of the young prisoner swinging with his pick with at least a degree more efficiency. He darted a sideways look at the guard as he completed his downswing, imagining the point of his pickaxe penetrating the guy's skull. The guard was standing behind the young prisoner watching him work. He wasn't making any attempt to disguise the way his gaze was roaming freely over the young prisoner's body. John gritted his teeth as the guard put his head on one side and looked pointedly at the kid's butt. He didn't know if the guy with the gun really had a hard-on for this boy's ass or if he was just trying to put him off his stroke so he could hit him again for slacking. John suspected this guy probably got as much sexual satisfaction out of hurting the young good-looking ones as he would from actually screwing them.

When the young prisoner swung the pick without even faltering, John felt an obscure flicker of pride, as though the kid was his protégée or something. He gave himself a mental shake. The boy was nothing to do with him. But he couldn't help darting a sideways glance at the young prisoner and saw by his expression he was very aware of that guard standing behind him; the kid had his teeth gritted but the expression on his face was all defiance. John felt a smile tug at his mouth. Despite the big blue eyes and full lower lip, he was clearly one stubborn little s.o.b. And he had brains enough to know this guard was trying to rattle him but wasn't going to give into it.

John swung his own pick again as the young prisoner did the same. By the way he slammed it into the ice wall so hard it made his whole body judder from the force of it, John guessed the boy was probably picturing it going into that guard's head as well.

At the sound of a scuffle in the next cavern, the guard jerked his head up and moved in that direction, but as he passed John he slammed his gun into his lower back, sending John smashing into the ice wall. His voice was soft. "Keep your mind on your work, tough guy," he breathed into John's ear.

As the guard moved off, John peeled himself painfully off the ice cavern. "Son of a *bitch*."

"Yes, he's a barrel of laughs, isn't he?" the young prisoner murmured.

John darted him a glance. "Do you remember anything?"

The young prisoner didn't look at him. "No."

His tone was very bleak and John flinched from it. He couldn't stop his immediate reaction which was an urge to make the younger man feel better. "The process might not be permanent." As that didn't get any response, he shrugged. "Guess there's not a lot of point in us introducing ourselves then, is there?"

"I don't think the human brain can really deal in vacuums." The young prisoner swung his pick again. "By which I mean we'll have to start thinking of ourselves as something because that's what the human race has always done." There was a pause before he sighed. "At least I think that's what it's always done. I seem to remember knowing about..." He broke off with a shrug.

"I'm calling myself 'John' until I find out what my real name is."

The prisoner glanced at him. "You don't look like a 'John' to me."

"What do I look like?"

The prisoner frowned, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He shook his head. "Sorry. It's gone. John's fine." He swung his pick again but it was clearly costing him something, the weight of it pulling at his shoulders painfully. The pick head struck the ice at a sideways slant then bounced off and the prisoner had to jerk his head out of the way to avoid being hit by the rebound. He let the pick hit the ground and bowed his head, snatching a breath. "I don't think I can - "

"Yes, you can." John said it urgently. "You can do this. You have to do this."

He was a little disconcerted by how the boy immediately responded to his tone. He could see the resolve flowing back into him and the prisoner straightened up with new determination, teeth gritted again. "You're right." As he swung the pick again, accurately this time, a clean bite into the ice, he spoke without looking at John. "What do I look like?" 'Way too pretty for this place.' John bit down the words and shrugged. "I don't know - Samuel, Benjamin, David. Something like that."

"I must look very Biblical." The young prisoner half-smiled.

John swung his own pick and grinned. "Well you don't have a long white beard or anything so I don't know why I should - maybe you just look like someone who knows about the past."

The boy shot him a sideways glance and John was thrown a little off-balance by the intelligence in those oversized eyes. When that kid looked at you, he really freakin' *looked* at you. Like he was seeing straight into you, through you. For the first time John wondered if they had known each other before the process had rendered them people without a past. He'd been assuming they must be from completely different places, strangers meeting here for the first time, but he had a feeling he'd felt that gaze on him before. Like he'd looked into those eyes and lied right at him and it had damned near killed him to do so.

"Funny you should say that. I feel as if I did know a lot about the past." The boy turned back to the ice wall and swung his pick again. "Not much of an attribute given our circumstances, is it?"

As John turned back to the wall in front of him he was already cursing himself. He wasn't going to get involved, right? And now they'd conversed. He'd offered reassurance, advice, introduced himself. Well that was the last time. He was not putting his head on the block for that kid. From now on the boy was on his own.

***

John was hungry enough to smell the food from a distance. He glanced down at his bucket even though he knew what was in there. Only five crystals. Damn, he needed that food. If he didn't get it, he wasn't going to be able to get through another work period, which meant he was going to get knocked around by the guard, maybe badly damaged enough that he couldn't get through the *next* work period. That was how quickly you could go from being one of the strong to being one of the weak. He should never have given that kid one of his crystals. It hadn't helped him; the boy still only had four in there.

He swung the pick with redoubled vigor, hacking blocks out of the ice with real savagery. The food was coming closer and he really needed it. As the third block of ice hit the ground and shattered it spilled a crystal. John exhaled in relief. He picked it up, squeezing it tight for a second before tossing it into his pail as the guard arrived.

It was the one who'd hit him in the back earlier and John couldn't help giving him a 'screw you' look as the man looked up from his pail. The guard scowled but jerked his head at the guards coming behind with the rations. "Feed this one." He took the crystals from John's bucket and put them in the pouch at his waist.

John accepted the bowl of unappetizing grey mush with more enthusiasm than he would have believed possible. This stuff smelt like something he'd scraped off his shoe in the...in the past. Correction, something he thought he might have scraped off his shoe in the past because he damned well couldn't remember. But it had nutrition in it. It had warmth and energy and he needed it to stay alive. In a place like this staying alive was everything. He dug his fingers into it and scooped a handful into his mouth, closing his eyes with the relief of it as the gnawing pain in his guts turned into enthusiastic acceptance.

The young prisoner cried out as the guard hit him across the lower back again, knocking him into the wall. "Lazy son of a - " The young prisoner cracked the side of his face against the ice wall and his knees buckled at the impact.

As the guard lifted the gun to hit him again, John shouted, "Stop it!" before he could bite it down.

The guard turned on him murderously. "Who are you to tell me what to do?"

John held up his hands in a placatory manner. "I'm just thinking of you, pal. I'm presuming you like it down here about as much as we do. You want to get promotion I figure you need to keep your bosses happy."

"So?" The guard still had the gun raised but he hadn't actually hit the young prisoner again.

John determinedly didn't look at the kid, who was trying to cling to the wall, gasping oxygen back into his lungs as the pain from his back obviously thrummed through him. Addressing the guard with a shrug, he said, "Well I'm assuming the way you keep your bosses happy is to keep the crystal production high. Beating up on your work force so badly they can't swing a pick isn't going to do that."

The young prisoner was moving now, fingers clawing at the ice, slowly turning his head to listen to the conversation.

The guard glanced back at his victim. "Examples have to be made. Everyone makes his quota or else he doesn't eat."

John shrugged. "Fine, you've made your example and I'm sure he's learned his lesson, but if you don't feed him he's not going to be able to make his quota next time either. And then when you don't feed him to punish him for that he's not going to make his quota again. In three or four days you're going to have a corpse on your hands and be a slave short. Which means you're going to be shy a good fifty crystals per week, something I shouldn't think would go down too well with your bosses. If I were you, I'd try to keep my workforce alive for as long as possible. You have too many prisoners die on your shift, you might find you're working along beside them in a couple of weeks time."

It had been a shot in the dark but it seemed to have found its target. John had to stop himself showing his satisfaction as he saw the flicker of fear in the bully's eyes. The guard looked between them and then jerked his head at the guard doling out the food. "Half rations for this one." He grabbed the young prisoner's hair and jerked his head back. "But you make the next quota or I'll take the skin from your back. Do you understand?"

The young prisoner swallowed but then nodded. "I understand."

The guard threw him back against the wall with casual brutality then turned away. The guard with the food tossed a bowl with one dollop of the unappetizing mush down next to the young prisoner before following his fellow into the next cavern.

The boy pushed himself off the wall and turned around stiffly. He'd scraped his face on the ice and Jack grimaced at the sight of it. He was going to have a bruise on his right cheekbone and on his forehead.

"Thank you." The young prisoner spoke breathlessly as he reached down for the bowl of food. "You didn't have to do that."

John kept his face as unreadable as he could make it, determined not to show the anxiety he was feeling. "Are you okay?"

The boy nodded. "Thanks to you."

John winced inwardly. Damnit, what was that he'd told himself about not getting involved? And hadn't someone once told him something about the Chinese or some people, how if you saved a man's life you were responsible for it, forever? Was his memory coming back then? No. Just his general knowledge. Perhaps that had probably never been erased, just - traumatized by having the important stuff scooped out from along side it. Still, any knowledge was good and he was grateful for it. "You'd better eat that while it's hot," he said briskly.

The boy nodded, moving carefully as the pain from his kidneys clearly gave him twinges. He scooped a mouthful of food into his mouth and John winced again at the way he sucked it from his fingers so ravenously. He'd forgotten the kid had missed the last meal. The whole damned cavern had probably been spinning even before that guard had cracked his head against the wall, and it was no wonder his coordination with a pick wasn't all it could be. John had to fight the impulse to give the boy some of his own food. In the short term it might help him a little, but in the long term this kid was going to need John to be strong for both of them. John suspected that if they didn't break out of here soon that boy wasn't going to make it.

The young prisoner licked every scrap from his fingers and then ran his tongue around the bowl before saying, "David."

"What?"

He looked up at John. "I think I like 'David' best out of the names you said."

David and Jonathan. John frowned. Those names went together almost too well. Liked he'd heard them before somewhere. "Maybe those really are our names?"

The boy shook his head. "No. It's not my name, but as I don't know what my name is any more, it's one I can live with."

"If you don't know what your name is, how do you - ?"

"Because I know what it *isn't*, and it isn't David. Or Samuel. Or Benjamin." There was a stubborn set to his mouth which John rather liked. The boy added pointedly. "And you're not called 'John'."

John shrugged. "I am now."

The young prisoner's face fell and he looked around the cavern. "This can't be it. This can't be where we - "

"It isn't." John said it firmly. "This is a - temporary situation."

The boy hauled himself back to his feet and wearily picked up his pick. "For you maybe, but I have a feeling that for me it's going to be permanent."

John knew this was the point where he could tell the boy he wasn't going anywhere without him. That if the chance came to escape he'd take him with him, that whatever happened he wasn't going to leave him to the mercy of men like this. But he didn't say anything and he saw the young prisoner give a little nod as though it was no more than he'd been expecting.

Gritting his teeth, John snatched up his pick and swung it at the wall with all his might. Even when it dislodged a block of ice the size of his head, it didn't help.

***

John had been trying to ignore the conversation for a while. The one those prisoners in the next cavern were holding at a volume that the boy next to him was meant to hear. The one which speculated as to whether or not the young prisoner had ever had to take it up the ass before, and if so how often, and how much he'd enjoyed it. One of them was insisting he was pure as the driven snow, you only had to look at him, while another was saying he was sure he'd had to give it up before now and he just bet he'd squealed like a stuck pig.

'David' was swinging his pick into the cavern wall with dogged determination but the way he was yanking those chunks of ice out suggested he would have liked to put his pick through a few skulls.

John was feeling the same way. He was getting more and more of a sense of...connection to this boy. He found himself looking over at him again and again. It was starting to make his own muscles ache in sympathy every time the kid faltered, his stomach rumble when the boy's protested its emptiness. He could see what those guys were seeing, certainly, he wasn't blind or stupid. The boy was a looker. Nice bone structure, good body, those big blue eyes. His skin had that glow which only youth and health bestows upon the fortunate and still looked near-flawless despite the cold and the hunger starting to leave sores at the side of his undeniably beautiful mouth. And yes, as those sons of bitches kept mentioning, the kid had a nice, firm ass as well. But there was so much more to this guy than his outer wrapping. Something internal. Something special. Something that made you want to defend him, keep him safe from harm, protect his inner core because inside of that very attractive packing there was something valuable and fragile John really didn't want to see get broken.

"Hey, pretty boy!"

John saw 'David' tighten his grip on his pick and then swing it into the wall with everything he had, levering out a lump of ice the size of a football. Football. He remembered figures on a screen, commentators talking very fast, linebackers, go deep, touchdown...

John blinked. The boy was crouched down by the block of ice holding the pick behind the head to chip delicately at the ice. Suddenly all his lack of coordination vanished and he looked as though he knew exactly what he was doing as he excavated the ice carefully. John hadn't had the patience to do it that way and he'd broken a crystal in two with a careless swing before now, but this kid looked like he had patience to burn.

At least this time it was rewarded. That was one hell of a crystal. John wiped his hands on his clothes. "That should count for two."

The boy held it up to the dim lights. "It's beautiful. I hadn't realized how beautiful they were. What do you suppose they need them for anyway?"

John shrugged. "Some kind of power source or weapons technology, probably."

The guy looked dismayed. "Then by mining these crystals we could be helping to kill people?"

"Hey," John said it quietly. "We're staying alive, any way we can. That isn't a crime."

"Pretty boy! I'm talking to you!"

'David' gritted his teeth then darted a glance over his shoulder at the prisoners in the next cavern. One of them was the big guy with a beard John had already marked out as being the ringleader of that little group. "Later," the bearded prisoner said thickly. "You and me." He blew the younger prisoner a kiss and the boy turned his head away quickly, a shudder going through him.

He swung his pick clumsily and it bounced off the ice wall.

"Hey," John said quietly, "just hang in there. It's going to be okay." He didn't know why he'd said that.

"Is it?" The younger man swung his pick again, managing to get it to sink into the wall in a downward motion this time.

As he went to tug at it, John said, "Lever, don't pull. You're trying to get a chunk of ice out, remember, not just get the pick free."

"Oh, you mean there's supposed to be a point to this?" The boy gave him a brief tight smile but he did push up on the handle and lever out a block of ice. It fell to the floor at his feet and broke open but there was no crystal inside.

"Better luck next time," John told him.

"Don't you think there has to be a time limit on how long we can keep swinging pickaxes into what is effectively holding up the ceiling?" He asked the question conversationally.

John glanced up at the roof instinctively. "Good point." He gave the boy a glance of surprise. Not just a pretty face then.

The prisoner with the beard took advantage of the guard being temporarily out of earshot to hiss across, "Blue Eyes is spoken for and you'd better remember it. No point in making nice with him. He's mine." John gritted his teeth and swung his own pick. He felt rather than saw the boy darting a glance in his direction, hoping against hope that he might be able to help him. Why the hell had he ever started speaking to him? The last thing he needed was some near-sighted uncoordinated geek screwing up his escape plan by tripping over his own feet at the crucial moment. This kid was clearly dead weight. But John had a horrible suspicion that he was the kind of guy who wasn't going to let that boy get taken without a fight, which meant he was clearly the kind of guy who was going to get pounded to a nasty stain on the ice unless he had some combat training. He guessed that was something he wasn't going to know until he swung the first punch.

He looked across at the guy with the beard like he wasn't worth wasting any words on. Threats were useless in a place like this anyway. Actions needed to speak louder than words. He swung his pick into the wall with all his might then jerked up the handle, dislodging a big chunk of ice, which fell to the floor with a thud. When it spilled two crystals John could have done a little dance with the relief of it, but he kept his face a blank mask, just giving the guy with the beard a long look as he bent and picked up the two crystals tossing one into his own basket before deliberately throwing the second into the young prisoner's.

The big guy with the beard scowled in annoyance and John gave him another slow look before turning back to swing his pick again.

The young prisoner murmured, "Thank you," too low for anyone else to hear.

Not looking at him, John said, "You're welcome."

***

He really hadn't meant to fall asleep, but he was so damned tired his eyelids had gone from heavy to closed before he could help himself. One minute he was sitting there thinking that kid was going to need some protection to get through the night, the next he was being sucked down into an exhausted slumber as deep and cold as death.

He dreamed of a room with a stone circle at the end of it. Men with guns who seemed to be on his side. A big guy with a gold tattoo on his forehead. A blonde woman. And someone else. Someone...Being swirled through a vortex of blue light. Capture. Pain. A white light burning into his brain. Feeling his memories slip through his fingers like minnows in a stream. Trying to hang onto who he was, trying to hang onto his name, but losing it, losing...And all the time the rage because they weren't just doing this to him they were doing it to - the name was almost there, he could almost taste it. He'd said that name so many times he knew it as well as his own. They were hurting him; the someone else John wanted to protect. He tried to call out a reassurance but then...

Then he was here. Without a past or a future or a name. And now there was someone else on the edge of his vision in need of his help, someone trying to call out to him, to call for his help...

John awoke with a gasp and realized at once that there was something unpleasant going on in the darkness nearby. He could hear the sound of heavy breathing, cloth being torn, and someone trying to make a sound and being stifled.

Suddenly he was wide-awake and reaching for his pick. Only when his hand felt only ice against its fingertips did he remember the guards took away their tools every night. They were stacked out of reach of anyone's chain in the next chamber. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness and by the faint bluish glimmer of the ice light he saw the guy with the beard wrestling with the young prisoner. David was lying on his back with the big prisoner sitting on his chest and holding his wrists flat to the floor. Two other prisoners had hold of the boy's ankles. The boy was putting up a hell of a struggle but the other guy was so much stronger than he was and he had those two friends helping him.

As John managed to get the scene in focus, the bearded prisoner backhanded the boy so hard across the face John was afraid he might have broken his neck. The struggling stopped and then started again but weaker, undirected; the kid was clearly hanging onto consciousness by a thread. He managed to spit out what John realized was a gag and manage tautly, "Don't - " There was a warning in his tone but he didn't have any way of making good on his implicit threat.

The bearded prisoner said softly, "We can do this the easy way or the hard way but either way you get to bend over and take what's coming to you."

"No!" There was panic as well as anger in the boy's response. He kicked out wildly and caught one of the two holding onto his ankle in the midriff. The guy gasped as the breath was knocked out of him. Undercover of the guy trying to grab some oxygen, John quietly got to his feet. As he walked towards them he was running the links of the chain from his ankle through his fingers. As the one prisoner rolled on the floor, wheezing for breath, John stamped down hard on his groin. His scream of pain cut straight through the cavern. John kicked his buddy under the jaw while he was still gaping at him in disbelief. As the guy hit the ice with a crash, John wrapped the chain around the bearded prisoner's neck and pulled it tight, wrapping the links around his hand so he could twist it into the soft flaps of flesh beneath that ugly face.

As John yanked on the chain tighter, he breathed in the bearded guy's ear, "Tell me, what part of 'No' was it you couldn't understand?"

The bearded prisoner slammed his elbow into John's ribs so hard the world almost went black but he hung onto the chain and tightened his grip. The elbow was jerked into him again, almost as hard, then more weakly, more weakly still.

"You'll kill him." He could see the young prisoner's face in the dim bluish light, see the bruise on his cheekbone and forehead, the blood trickling from his mouth where the son-of-a-bitch John was throttling had hit him.

John met his gaze. "That's the idea."

"But - "

John yanked on the chain harder. "Like the guard said, sometimes you just have to make an example. This is a prison. Normal rules don't apply."

"Oh God..." The boy turned his head away so he wouldn't have to see the bearded prisoner's face going blue, his eyes bulging, the tongue lolling in his head.

That was when something hit John in the back so hard the whole cavern tilted. And then a foot collided with the back of his head. He saw the boy throw himself at someone. Heard a cry of pain. Felt another blow. Then there was the sound of running, guns fired into the air, guards shouting a warning, the rumble of something like an earthquake, the sharp sound of ice cracking. Another blow landed and this time he slipped into the land of near dark.

***

He awoke to pain. Lots of pain. In his head, his ribs, his jaw, his back, his ankle was just numb but for all he knew his foot had fallen off. He rolled over, groaning, "God, did anyone get the number of that truck?"

"Shush, don't move. You might have broken your back." The voice was low and soothing.

John blinked and then focused. His first thought was that it was going to be as easy as eating pie to get those crystals out of the walls. You could see right into the ice in this cavern and there were the crystals glistening and glowing like starlight, giving enough illumination to see by. He blinked again and this time he could see the anxious face of the young prisoner looking down at him. John realized he had his head in 'David's lap and the kid was staring down at him all a quiver with concern for him. That boy was way too soft. "I just rolled over," John pointed out to him. "If my back was broken that would be a little tricky. And look - I'm wriggling my toes."

He couldn't help thinking the way the kid automatically looked was too cute for words. He was wearing boots after all. He smirked. "Made you look. Made you stare, made you lose your - " Suddenly he remembered what those guys had been trying to do and his jubilation dissolved. He caught the boy's arm. "Shit - I passed out. Did they - ?"

The young prisoner looked at him blankly for a minute and then his face cleared. He spoke in a whisper. "No. And you didn't 'pass out', you were knocked out. That one guy kicked you in the head and then the guards were hitting you to make you let go of the chain, but you wouldn't."

"That fucker deserved to die."

The boy moistened his lips and John noticed how the bottom one had a cut across it and that was a nasty looking bruise on the kid's jaw. "Keep it down. And I don't know if you killed him or not. He certainly wasn't looking very healthy by the time they clubbed you into unconsciousness."

"Well either way I bet he thinks twice before he tries that again."

"Oh I think you made your point pretty well."

John reached up and touched the boy's face. The young prisoner flinched and then held still, letting John's fingers touch the bruise on the side of his face, the red mark on his jaw, the cut across his mouth. "Looks like you took a bit of a hiding yourself."

"I hit the guard who hit you. I was afraid they were going to kill you. They weren't pulling their punches."

John flinched as he remembered hovering on the brink of consciousness, blows being rained on him, and then someone throwing himself across him, yelling at the guards to stop before they killed him, shielding him with his body, the blows still landing...Then the crack of the ice coming again, deafening this time; the thunder roaring like a tidalwave...

He looked up at the boy sharply. "Let me see your back."

"There's nothing to - "

He reached behind him, pulled up his jacket and shirt and saw the purple marks where the blows had landed. The boy's whole back was patterned with them. He grimaced. "Shit - "

"I think you've broken some ribs." The boy bit his lip. "And your ankle looks as though it might be broken as well. We fell a long way and I landed on top of you. I'm sorry."

John looked up in surprise and saw the hole in the ceiling above them. A long way up, definitely. Twenty-five feet perhaps. Maybe more. He blinked. "Well yes, you would have landed on top of me. You'd thrown yourself on top of me to stop them beating me to death. You couldn't know the floor was going to give out." He twisted his head round to meet the boy's eye. "I'm presuming the floor gave out?"

David shrugged. "The floor. The walls. The ceiling. You name it, it pretty much gave out."

"So, where are we?"

The boy moistened his lips. "We're in the next cavern down."

"Why haven't they got us out?"

"Because they evacuated everyone. The whole structure is incredibly unstable. To be honest I'm sitting here afraid to sneeze in case the rest of it falls down on top of us. I have this little problem with the idea of being suffocated under a ton of ice."

"A problem I share." John looked around, the reality of their situation starting to sink in. "So, you're saying no one is looking for us?"

"No one cares," the boy said it quietly. "Whether we're alive or dead doesn't make any difference to them. This mine is no longer stable and therefore no longer viable. I don't think they're coming back."

"Right." John nodded emphatically. "So, we're free then?"

"Not exactly." David pointed to the chains still around their ankles. "We're just lucky the wall we were chained to came down with us or we'd be hanging upside down by our broken legs round about now. My chain snapped off, luckily for me, but yours is still attached to the bit of wall it was welded to."

John saw one of the guard's guns lying next to them and reached for it. "Problem solved. I can just shoot through the - "

David took it from him like a parent confiscating a toy from a difficult child. "That might bring down the ceiling."

"So - " John looked around the cavern. "You're saying we're stranded in an unstable underground ice cavern with no food and no water, not to mention no heating, and no way out of here. And we've been abandoned by people to whom it is a matter of the most complete indifference whether or not we're alive or dead?"

The boy nodded. "I think that sums it up pretty accurately. Yes."

John looked around the cavern again and grimaced. "Peachy," he said.

***

He was glad the boy was finally getting some sleep. He'd worn himself out today. Finding that pick, chipping down through the ice to try and get to the end of John's chain, trying to break the links to free him. Failing. Trying. Failing. John had tried it too but whatever these links were made from they seemed to pretty close to unbreakable. Then David had moved onto attempting to climb up those impossible walls. They bent inwards so sharply you had to hang upside down for the last bit and there was nothing to hang *from*; but the kid was a trier, he'd say that for him, he'd tried cutting steps into the ice, trying to make handholds, using the pick to anchor himself...Every attempt had ended in the boy losing his grip and hitting the ground hard but that had only slowed him down a little, it hadn't stopped him. In the end John had pointed out it wouldn't help for them both to have a broken ankle and anyway, night must be coming in because it was getting even colder and they needed to huddle together for warmth. The boy was burning energy doing that which they had no way of replacing. If he used up too many calories too fast he was going to have nothing left...

He'd been a little disconcerted by the trust the boy had shown in snuggling up against him. Christ, it was only the night before those guys had tried to rape him. But David seemed to have made a decision that whatever the rest of the human race was like, John was okay. John was someone he could trust. And perhaps more importantly than that, John was in need of his body heat to survive the night. The boy had arranged himself next to him carefully, very concerned about not putting any weight on him but John had told him he wasn't made of porcelain, and besides, he needed the warmth. The ribs on his right side were painful where that guy's elbow had connected, but he was still very glad of the way David curled up against his left side. It had seemed almost worryingly natural for the boy to fall asleep with his head on John's chest, his left arm wrapped around John's body, John's left arm around his shoulders; the fine soft hair just tickling John's neck...

The last thing he'd thought he would need to worry about in a place this cold was getting an erection but he'd had to concentrate pretty hard on the throbbing in his ankle to cool down that throbbing starting up in his cock. That would be a great way to repay the kid's trust, of course, get a hard-on he could hardly fail to notice.

As David slept, John had a chance to think over the day's events, not to mention their current situation. He reckoned if that didn't douse any possible fires in his groin nothing would.

John's ankle was broken from where the chain had yanked on it so hard when they'd hit the ground. It had been numb because of the swelling but that was starting to go down now and the pain was really starting to bite. The boy had taken off his t-shirt and used it as a bandage. John had protested they were both going to need all the heat they could get in a place like this but David had just put on his stubborn face and ignored him. They'd both been a little disconcerted to find that underneath the prison jackets and shirts they were wearing the same kind of t-shirts, pants and boots.

"We might come from a planet where everyone dresses the same way?" David talked as he bound up John's ankle with an efficiency that suggested he had done this before.

John had a flash of a crowded street, people in multi-colored garb, no two people dressed the same. A huge stadium with everyone watching the same ball fly through the air but all wearing different colors, different styles. He shook his head. "I don't think so. Last night I dreamed about a place with people in this uniform. I think I might be a soldier."

"Well what does that make me?" David tore the last piece of his makeshift bandage in two and tied it around the anklebone. John couldn't help noticing what beautiful hands he had, those long sensitive fingers had managed to slip the cloth underneath the cuff and tighten it around the break with deft skill. But the knuckles of the boy's right hand were bruised, the skin broken, and he realized with a jolt that David must have done that defending him from those guards.

With difficulty John lifted his gaze from those fingers and found himself staring into curious blue eyes. "What?"

"Well I'm not a soldier. I didn't know any means to get those guys off me last night. And when I hit that guard it jarred my hand all the way up to the elbow." He gave his hand a rueful shake.

John moistened his lips. "No, I'm sure you're not a soldier."

"Right." David darted him a sideways look, a flicker of hurt in those expressive eyes. "Why?"

"You look much too intelligent."

The boy had a nice smile. The kind that made you want to see it a lot more often. A quick pleased little grin, surprised out of him and which he couldn't quite repress; that was definitely a sight for sore eyes. John smiled in response then collected himself, trying to be brisk when a part of him was just itching to ask this kid if he had any idea how cute he was? *Well duh, given what those guys were trying to do to him last night I think he might have a clue...*

And now he was back to having to battle that burgeoning erection again. Not helped when David begin to move against him, slowly at first, and then with increasing urgency, little gasps coming from his open mouth, fingers closing convulsively in John's shirt. *Oh crap. Not a wet dream, kid, not now. I'm not made of stone you know...* Too late. The boy was clearly accessing some *happy* memories.

"Oh yes...oh God..."

John grimaced. Married, the boy was probably married. Any minute now he was going to be whimpering some woman's name. God, that was a point. Perhaps John was married too. Perhaps he had a wife back home going nuts with worry about him while he was sitting here enjoying having this boy rub up against him even though he didn't even know the kid's real name and the guy was thinking of someone else anyway. If they ever got out of here that might take some explaining:

Darling it must have been dreadful for you.

Well, you know, it wasn't so bad. There was this boy who fell through the floor with me who I swear was so hot I'm amazed the ice didn't melt all around him. That kind of helped.

What? You mean you...?

Well, no, unfortunately not. It was too damned cold for one thing and anyway the kid kept dreaming of someone else but I have to say I was more than game...Honey, why are you crying?

No, definitely not something he would be sharing with the little woman, supposing there was one, which round about now John definitely hoped there wasn't. And God it was so difficult not to just reach down and help that boy get where he was going. He'd only be offering a helping hand to a friend wouldn't he? And if the kid came in his pants he'd be all cold and sticky down there in no time.

Feeling like someone stealing coins from a blind man's pail, John reached down and unbuttoned the boy's fly. Then he tugged down his boxers and felt a slippery and very eager erection immediately spring into his hand.

"Oh boy..." His own cock was already protesting about the tightness of his underwear but the kid was lying on top of him and he couldn't get to his own cock to alleviate its suffering. David was making little jerking motions against him now and John couldn't resist getting a firm grip on that rosy cock and starting to stroke it. Okay, maybe the kid was thinking of someone else right now, but at least this way there would be one climax he'd helped give him. He tightened his grip, pumping him firmly now. The boy was jerking against him harder and harder, giving gasping little cries that were sending an electric current straight to John's cock.

"Oh please - yes! - don't stop - don't ever stop - yes - *Jack* - !"

John automatically reached across and wiped his hand clean on the ice. That hot fluid hitting his fingers should have been the biggest turn-on in the world, but the boy gasping out that other man's name in ecstasy had sure as hell ruined the moment for him. And to think he'd been worried about how he was going to hide his own erection. Well that certainly wasn't a problem he was going to have now.

David was gasping his way back to full consciousness and John quickly reached down, shoved his flaccid cock back into his boxers and then zipped up his trousers. Inside he could feel a strange sick sensation settling in the pit of his stomach. Like someone had just force-fed him a mouthful of lead.

"Oh God - " David jolted back into wakefulness, panting breathlessly and staring at John's chest like he had no idea where he was.

"You okay?" John tried to keep his tone even but it came out a little ragged and breathless.

"What did I just - I dreamed - "

John made himself say it. Made himself focus. "Try and remember. I don't think they are 'dreams', I think they're memories. They might help us to remember who we are."

He wanted to know the boy's real name. Wanted to whisper it once in his ear before the cold carried them off. A name with resonance. A name said with love. Yeah, by someone else. Said by 'Jack'. John had a strong suspicion he really wasn't going to want to hear anything David could remember about this Jack character, but he couldn't be selfish about this, for all he knew their way out of here might lie in something from their past. They needed to remember who they were and how they'd come here. Even if it killed him.

David was still trying to recover from the double whammy of an orgasm and all those memories. He seemed embarrassed about lying on John's chest and sat up. "Did I - ?"

"No." John said it firmly. "Must just have been part of the dream. What did you remember?"

David swallowed and darted him an embarrassed glance. "It was pretty - "

"Steamy?"

"Yes."

"Well at least you had some fun before you got your memory wiped, that's good to know. Given the name you said I'm presuming this was fun with a 'he'?"

David blinked. "What name did I say? I couldn't remember."

" 'Jack'." He tried not to let his dislike for this unknown rival show but the name definitely came out with a little venom wrapped around it. "What do you remember about him? What did he look like?" *How old was he? Was he younger than me? I bet he was, the son of a bitch. Some young stud with a twenty-four hour erection and a six pack stomach.*

"Jack..." David said it softly and something stirred inside John. He supposed he just wanted to hear the kid say his name like that, so wistfully. David ran a hand through his hair. "I can only remember bits and pieces - I didn't see his face."

*Why the hell not? Did the son of a bitch make you bend over and take it doggy style every freakin' time?* He had to do something about this jealousy. This was insane. The kid trusted him. He thought he was a friend. A protector. Someone who'd helped him and tried to keep him safe. He had to get a grip and fast. "Well what do you remember about him? Anything that would tell you what kind of guy he was? What he did for a living? What your relationship was? If you were living together?" Yes, that sounded reasonable. Someone who wasn't being eaten up inside with jealousy would probably ask those kind of questions as well.

"We were - " David darted him an embarrassed glance.

John moistened his lips. "Now would probably be a good time for me to mention that I have no problem whatsoever with you being gay, okay? For all I know I am too. And I've never had any hang-ups about - well, actually, I have no idea what kind of hang-ups I used to have, but if I ever *did* have any problem with two guys doin' it I sure as hell don't now. So, just spill what you remember and let's see if we can do the jigsaw puzzle with some of those pieces."

David's relief was obvious. "Okay - thanks. We were - having sex in a really big bed which had these - um black satin sheets." He grimaced apologetically and John couldn't help pulling a face as well. "I had my head back because he was - biting my neck - "

Fucking vampire is he?

"But when I opened my eyes I could see him reflected on the ceiling - "

Mirrors on the ceiling *and* black satin sheets? How tacky can you get?

"Just the back of his head and his - body - his hair was sort of - grizzled."

John raised an eyebrow in surprise. Not some young stud then. No, actually that made sense. Some older guy with money and no taste. Well no taste in bedroom décor, damned good taste in boyfriends obviously.

"Older than you then." He nodded. "I can see that."

David looked hurt. "Why? Do I look like the houseboy type?"

"Well you could bring me a mint julep any time." It was out before he could stop it. John coughed quickly as the boy's eyes widened. "I'm kidding. I was just thinking that black satin sheets and mirrors on the ceiling suggest the taste of an older guy, that's all. Young guys don't usually go in for those kind of - props because they've got youth on their side so they don't feel the need for them. Were you - having fun?"

Tell me you were bored. Tell me you were just waiting for it to be over, that it didn't do a damned thing for you.

David swallowed. "Oh boy, yes."

Shit.

John couldn't pretend he hadn't seen the way the boy's tongue flickered over his lower lip as he savored what had clearly been one hell of a memory. "So. Not so bad for an old guy then?"

"I don't think he was old." David defending the prick didn't make him feel any better. "His body was very - nice. And he had lots of ener- " He broke off in embarrassment.

"Okay, let's call him fortyish, shall we? Questionable taste in bedroom décor but other than that apparently an okay guy." He looked at him interrogatively. "Anything else? Apart from his first name? Anything on the bedroom walls that might tell you where he worked? Anything belonging to you that might tell us where you worked?"

David was shaking his head. "That's what's so strange. The place didn't feel familiar, at all. And yet later in the dream, I did feel like I knew it, but I didn't feel - safe there. And none of those things were mine. I know they couldn't have been mine. The pictures on the walls were awful and the carpet was hideous. And the Jacuzzi was unbelievably vulgar -"

"Jacuzzi?" John raised an eyebrow. "The guy had a Jacuzzi?"

"Apparently." David gave another of those apologetic grimaces. "With gold taps. In the shape of leaping dolphins. And a mock mosaic floor of a Roman orgy."

"Jesus, did that guy get a taste bypass or what?" John collected himself and held up a hand. "Sorry. This is your - other half we're talking about. I keep forgetting." *No, I don't keep forgetting. I can't think about anything else.* He knew he shouldn't ask the question - what was the point in torturing himself after all? - but he couldn't stop himself. "So, you have any memories of the Jacuzzi?"

The boy ducked his head and John wondered if there was any point in telling him that even if he was blushing he certainly wouldn't be able to see it in this light.

"Yes." The response was muffled.

"Well - spit it out. It could be relevant."

"It's not." David grimaced again. "We were just - you know."

"Oh I can guess. So did you get a look at his face in that part of the dream?"

David shook his head. "No. He was - soaping my back."

John closed his eyes as he thought of David sitting in a Jacuzzi in front of him, reaching up to gently push the boy's head a little further forward so he could squeeze the sponge of soapy water down the back of his neck. Watching the suds cascade down that glistening naked skin, soaping those strong shoulders, the knots of his spine; wrapping an arm around his chest and easing him back gently. That little gasp at the moment of penetration. The ecstasy of sliding inside that silky heat so slowly. The boy pressing back against him, welcoming him in, beads of sweat trickling down his cheekbone which John could lean forward and lick off, savoring the soap and shampoo flavor of him. Oh God, shampooing his hair, running his fingers through those short strands, rinsing the soap off, watching the water run clear, but buried inside him the whole time, tightening his grip around that smooth chest to ease the boy back onto his cock, not thrusting, just letting gravity works its magic as he eased in slowly deeper and deeper until he was buried in him to the root, the boy sighing with satisfaction as the last inch slid home...

"He kept giving me whiskey."

"What?" John jolted himself out of the little daydream into which he'd been drifting so pleasurably.

"And there were a lot of beer bottles rolling around the edge of the Jacuzzi." David was frowning as he remembered. "Actually I think I was pretty drunk. I felt sort of - reckless. He kept holding the whiskey bottle to my mouth and telling me to have another swig. He said I had too many inhibitions and it was his job to do something about them."

Son of a bitch!

David darted him an embarrassed look. "It's not sounding too good is it?"

John was starting to build up a real dislike for this 'Jack' character. "Well - maybe there were mitigating - did you and him do it just the two times, I mean was it a - ?"

"One night stand?" David shook his head. "No. There were lots of times. All mixed up and confusing, but all in the same house." He pulled a face. "The house with the godawful décor."

"And were you drunk every time?"

David winced. "I - I think I was."

"But you were okay about what you and him were - ?" John couldn't seem to stop the anger building up inside him "You knew what you were doing?"

David ran a hand through his hair. "I think I did say to him a couple of times that maybe we should stop. But he - he sort of talked me round. He was very persuasive and - " He grimaced. "I think I must have been infatuated or something. Every time I started trying to reason with him he just - stuck his tongue in my ear or started nibbling behind my ear, or kissing me or started - feeling me up again - and I'd cave. My knees just went weak and I couldn't remember why I didn't want to when it felt so good. I don't know why I couldn't see his face. It's as if my mind wouldn't let me remember it." He turned his head away as he said it, the last words coming out muffled, and just for a second John wondered if he was concealing something.

John gritted his teeth. "He could have drugged you."

"I think I was just - drunk on him. I think perhaps I'd been in love with him for a while without any real - hope, and I was so pleased he wanted me I couldn't seem to say no to him."

Bastard! John ran a hand through his hair. "It sounds like he was nothing like good enough for you to me. Did he do anything - kinky to you?"

David pulled a face. "Oh Christ, I must have been out of my mind. Those ties were just awful."

John blinked. "What?"

David shook his head. "Okay - this is really humiliating. He tied me to the bed with silk ties - with playboy bunnies on them. Really dreadful taste. And then he blindfolded me with another one. And he - ate food off me, ice cream, and honey, and maple syrup, and he put things in my mouth and made me guess what he was feeding me. God he made me eat squid. I hate squid. And oysters. Lots of oysters. He said I needed to crank up my libido to the same level as his."

"Arrogant manipulative exploitative son of a *bitch*." The words were out before he could stop them.

"I don't think he meant - " David broke off. "Okay, there's no point in me kidding myself here, is there? The guy was obviously a macho prick with a permanent hard-on and a serious taste deficiency who just used me for sex while I thought I was - in love."

The way he wrinkled his nose in disgust was so cute John couldn't help grinning despite his anger. A thought occurred to him. "Christ, maybe that was your first time - with a guy, I mean. It sounds like he was really taking the lead. Maybe you'd never done it with a guy before and didn't - know any better. Maybe he just dazzled you."

David managed a smile. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Trying to make me feel better."

"I'm serious. And you have other memories of this guy, right?" As the boy looked blank, John said encouragingly, "He must have taken you out to dinner? Taken you to a game?" As he was still getting a blank look, he grimaced. "Held a conversation with you? Something? Anything?"

David shook his head. "All I remember is lots and lots of sex, most of it of the fairly rough and tumble variety." He forced a smile. "Guess the love of my life wasn't much of a conversationalist."

John's fingers had curled up into a fist. All he wanted to do right now was find that guy and start punching. Christ, he'd had this boy right there, so in love with him he couldn't even see straight, and all he'd done was use him like a freakin' blow-up doll. How could a kid this beautiful and - special have ended up with a guy like that? Wasn't there any kind of cosmic justice out there that looked out for the innocent and the vulnerable?

David ran a hand through his hair and then shrugged. "Well I think that guy is a dead end as far as trying to remember things goes. I can literally only remember his bedroom ceiling." He wrinkled his nose again. "His mirrored bedroom ceiling." The look he exchanged with John was rueful, his smile brittle. "Well that's clearly something we now know about me - I obviously have lousy taste in men."

John wished he could think of something reassuring to say but nothing was coming to mind. "Let's get some sleep," he said after a pause. "Maybe we'll remember something else."

"What if losing our memories was the best thing that ever happened to us?" David forced a smile. "Until I had that dream I thought I was a scholar of some kind. Now I'm wondering if I'm just some rich guy's piece of fluff."

John reached out and caught his arm, squeezing it. "Look, maybe you got involved with someone who didn't treat you with the - respect you deserve, but that doesn't make you a - piece of fluff." He could only say the last three words through gritted teeth.

"Thanks." The boy lay back down again.

As he lay down next to him, John said, "For what?"

"Trying to make me feel better." There was a pause before he added conversationally, "Of course, if we ever get out of here and I go back to that guy I'm not going to need to worry about my memory returning. The type he obviously was I'm sure he has everything we ever did together on film."

John couldn't stand it any longer. Rolling over carefully, he clasped his hands to the boy's face and pulled him in for a kiss. He'd thought the boy would struggle but instead David melted at his touch, mouth opening in response to his lips, eyes closing. As John slipped his tongue tenderly into that moist warm welcome, he wondered why this seemed so familiar; why it was making him ache inside with such longing, like he'd had this once before and then lost it. Knew in his heart this was something fate would always snatch away from him.

"Oh God..." He breathed it into David's mouth, already feeling the loss of that warmth even before it was gone, his fingers carding through the boy's hair. He felt such incredible tenderness for him it was hard to believe they'd only known each other a couple of days. He felt like he already knew every atom of his being; like this boy was an extension of himself; his soul mate; his destiny. He didn't believe in love at first sight, but if he was honest he'd been drawn to David from the first second he'd laid eyes on him. And now they were together, finally alone in the darkness, kissing, it just felt so damned - right.

And David was responding with the same raw desperation. Body pushing against him urgently, sucking on John's tongue with real hunger. John kissed him deeper and harder then soft and so tender, his tongue exploring, tasting; fingers tightening in the silky perfection of his hair. David's long elegant fingers were tugging at his jacket, trying to burrow under cloth to find flesh to touch and although his fingertips were cold John loved the feel of them against his skin. John pulled out of the kiss to grab some oxygen and then brushed his mouth across David's moist kiss-swollen lips as softly as a butterfly alighting on a flower. John snatched another breath, desperately trying to hang onto some self-control as his cock swelled painfully against the confines of his pants; but the close proximity of David's body, not to mention the undeniable proof of David's attraction to him, proved more stimulus then even the cold could counter. "We shouldn't do this - You deserve so much better than this."

David moistened his lips, that intent gaze fixed on his unblinkingly. His breath was a white vapor in the darkness. "Do you see any mirrors on the ceiling?"

John automatically looked up, despite knowing the answer to that question. "Uh - sorry, can only offer you a big hole in the roof."

"Well I think that is just one of the many things that proves I'm definitely trading up."

John opened his mouth to articulate some of those good reasons why they shouldn't be doing this but the words foundered in the way David ran his tongue across his full lower lip, clearly not even knowing he was doing it, just an instinctive reaction to looking at John's mouth. John stared in disbelief at those wide set blue eyes, those sculpted cheekbones, that incredible mouth...

"Oh boy..." John swallowed hard. "You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life."

David swallowed too, then his fingers were furrowing through John's hair as he pressed his mouth hungrily against John's. He whispered it softly. "That's because you haven't seen your own reflection..."

And then in the midst of all this ice there was an inferno; fingers tracing trails of fire down skin already slick with sweat; mouths desperate to taste salt-flavored flesh; bodies grinding together to a chorus of groans, pants, and whimpers; hips rocking to the same frenzied rhythm. It was too much. Wherever they touched there were fireworks. They couldn't last. They cried out as they came but with a tinge of sadness wrapped around the ecstasy because they had no true names to call each other.

As he slowly came back to some semblance of awareness, John tightened his grip on the shuddering, panting figure in his arms and kissed the top of his head, enjoying the aftershocks of pleasure flowing through him. David was still convulsing soundlessly, only gradually coming down from his orgasm high to something approaching sanity, and John couldn't help feeling a tinge of pride. When that boy came, he really *came*. "You okay?" he murmured gently as the boy finally stopped moving.

There was a pause before a sweat-streaked face was tilted up to look at him. David was still breathing heavily but there was humor in his blue eyes. He moistened his lips, that tongue darting out enticingly. "So, did the earth move for you too?"

As John was still grinning, they heard the ominous crack of ice preparing to shift, then a threatening rumble. They stared at each other aghast and John spoke for both of them. "Shit," he said softly, before the sky seemed to fall on their heads.

***

He was dreaming of a room. His office. It was behind his head, spread out in a familiar clutter, dull duties waiting for him patiently in their respective in trays; but he didn't give a damn because right now he had other things to do. Other things he had to do because if he didn't he was going to explode. He was kissing paradise but it kept arguing with him. He kind of liked that about this particular wriggling six foot slice of heaven, it gave him the perfect excuse to keep shutting him up with another kiss. Oh God but he loved it when this boy just melted under his touch like chocolate left out in the sun...Chocolate. Yes. He was going to reprise that time when he'd licked chocolate ice cream from his navel then sucked it from his cock. In fact, to hell with the ice cream, he was going to get this squirming protesting piece of pie *out* of his damned clothes and swallow him to the root right now. If that didn't shut the boy up nothing would.

"John...?"

Something was tugging him away from here, damnit, he didn't want to leave this moment; he was kissing hot smooth skin and the arguing had been reduced to a delicious groaning noise, long fingers furrowing through his hair, the body he was nibbling to submission going boneless beneath him. Damn but he was good at this.

He pushed up the boy's t-shirt and then blinked in surprise at what he found there. This was way too familiar. He'd explored this strangely sexy blemish only a few hours before. And on somebody else.

"Please, John...please...?"

John realized there were several things wrong with this picture. He was in uniform; he had some insignia, a rank. He was seriously contemplating doing the show right here even though he knew damned well there was a guard standing right outside that door who was going to be able to hear every stifled moan and grunt. The guy he had jammed up against his wall was in different clothes, no insignia. Christ, he was fucking someone of lower rank; someone he'd -

He got a glimpse of his own hand closing on this guy's sleeve, practically dragging him down the corridor while a soldier followed behind with a gun. God in heaven, perhaps he was some kind of military junta who liked making free with his subordinates. Perhaps this wasn't playful resistance, after all, perhaps this boy *really* didn't want John touching him like that. Perhaps John was just some arrogant rapist who figured everyone he fucked was begging for it really.

No. This guy was really melting when John kissed him. His knees were going weak. He wanted this. He definitely wanted this. John might be full of it and he might be pushing this boy towards something he was a little reluctant to do but he was definitely responding to John's touch.

It was very important he looked at the face of the guy he was kissing. This was the lover who might be waiting for him somewhere. The one he had to get back to. Except he didn't want to, he was moving on to someone else, to David...As he was snatched away from that office and that warm body, he realized it had already happened. As he looked up into those dreamy blue eyes, he realized it didn't matter who that guy was any more; David's face had been grafted onto his. Whoever he might once have loved, David was obviously the only one for him now...

John awoke inside an igloo. He blinked a few times but sure enough there could be no other explanation, he was within a rounded white cave, walls shimmering with bluish light, crystals glistening at him from inside their ice prison. He not only knew this was called an igloo, he also knew Eskimos lived in them, on Earth, the planet he was from. His general knowledge really was coming back with a vengeance now. He just wasn't sure why he was here. And oh god that really *hurt*. John looked down at his ankle in surprise. Oh yes, he'd forgotten that cuff, not to mention the chain. He reached down and tugged at the links but they seemed to disappear into the smooth sides of his igloo. The piece of ice wall he'd been chained to had obviously decided to come for this little joy ride to the lower floor as well. Wasn't that touching?

"John!"

The voice was faint, muffled. Desperate. The kind of desperation that usually accompanied frantic activity but there was only the slightest scraping noise. Something delicate was happening, something careful.

"John, please...don't be dead, please don't be dead..."

He returned to the here and now with a jolt that jarred all the way down his ankle as he realized that was David up there. "Here!" he called. "David, I'm over here."

"Oh thank God - !" The faint scraping got closer, it sounded hollow on the ice above him. Like being inside a tin can. John was hit by another memory. An airplane. Motor chugging, the door open and the darkness reaching up to embrace him like a lover, to pull him down into a welcome he just knew he'd almost succumbed to once before. Like waltzing with death every time; that adrenaline high which came from the accompanying terror. Impossible not to speculate on the way your body would look if the chute didn't open. But he'd never expected Teal'c to be the one to wimp on him...

Teal'c? What kind of a name was that?

Damnit, he'd almost had something then.

It was such a quiet noise. Delicate as a mouse nibbling its way around a husk. John remembered the way David had excavated that crystal, all the previous clumsiness forgotten, using the pick head as skillfully as though it was a scalpel and he was a surgeon. John put a hand up to his head. He'd seen him do that before. Lots of times. But no, the memory was gone. Perhaps he'd just seen it done by other people, lots of times. But by who?

The word popped up unbidden: archaeologist.

It had resonance for him, all those conflicting associations: affection, exasperation, boredom. Someone he liked a lot but who irritated and bored him? That sounded like a wife to him. Perhaps his wife was an archaeologist?

Hello? Why do you think you have a wife? You have a memory of going down on some guy in your office, and you wanted to start getting to know that boy up there a whole lot better about ten seconds after you met him. I really don't think you're the marrying kind.

Okay, not a wife then. Perhaps the guy in the office who'd been arguing with him when John just wanted to have fun. He'd been exasperating in a lovable sort of way. If John's subconscious hadn't decided to transplant David's face and body into that scene, he might have found out whether or not his taste had stayed the same, but his mind had been too sneaky for him. He'd found himself licking the silver-pink smoothness of that appendix scar for the second time in a couple of hours and known at once there was something wrong. Unless he was kinky for guys who'd recently undergone appendectomies, that other sweet young thing had been obliterated from his psyche by the wonder that was David.

"Almost there...Can you hear me, John? Are you still there?"

"David I'm entirely encased in ice and I have a broken ankle. Where else would I be?"

The tip of a pick emerged no more than a millimeter beneath the ice above his head; a tiny glint of metal penetrating all that chill blue-white fire.

"You are such a smartass." The guy was trying to grumble but the relief couldn't help breaking through. "And keep your voice down. That ice you're sitting on is incredibly unstable. If I don't get you out of there quickly you're going to be doing a very good impression of a cable car in free fall. And, trust me on this, it's a hell of a long way down. I threw a crystal down there ten minutes ago and I haven't heard it touch bottom yet."

John grinned. "And you're just unstoppable, aren't you? Tell me, do you *ever* give up?"

"I'll let you know." Another delicate intrusion from that pick.

John waved an arm above his head to calculate the distance. "Uh - Daveyboy, you've got about two feet of clearance between my skull and the ice you're chipping at, you don't have to be quite so careful."

"I told you, it's very unstable. And stop talking. And *what* did you just call me?" A piece of ice was cut out with the pickaxe tip as skillfully as a chef slicing Camembert with a cheesewire. It was withdrawn to let in a blast of clear cold air. But the face above his looked puzzled. John recognized that expression. David was chasing fleeting memories again.

"Let 'em go," he said gently. "I'm not sure anything we did before now is worth saving." I used to fuck guys up against my office wall, and you used to be the plaything of a macho piece of shit. We're both better than that now. Why ever we did what we did before, we're doing this because we love each other.

Through gritted teeth, David said, "Call me 'Daveyboy' again."

John blinked. "Daveyboy."

David shook his head. "No, it's gone. But I definitely got a flicker of something before."

"Shall I try it again?"

"That depends."

"On what?" John enquired.

David leaned forward and looked down into the hole. "On whether or not you fancy wearing this pickaxe for a hat."

John saluted. "Message received and understood."

Another piece of ice was meticulously chiseled out, lifted, placed carefully out of sight. And another. And another.

"Do you think you've done this before?" John couldn't help thinking David was doing this at twice the speed that he could have done, which was strange given that he'd been so bad at the hacking and slicing kind of ice excavation.

David paused as he chipped at the ice. "I don't know. I haven't thought about it. The other just seemed so - pointless. This is different."

"Not uncoordinated then. Just insufficiently motivated."

David moistened his lips and two blue eyes were turned upon John in a withering stare. "If you want to spend the rest of your life down there, you're going the right way about it."

"I can shut up too. In fact I can do that really well."

"Really?" David meticulously removed another piece of ice. "How odd when you practice so rarely."

John swallowed down the snappy one-liner and stifled a grin. He'd been in love with this boy for a while but he was really starting to *like* him now. "Do you think we would have been friends?" he asked.

David grunted as he picked up another block of ice, turned, and carefully lowered it again. "I doubt it."

John felt hurt. "Why?"

"Because you're a - tough guy and I'm a - well, let's just say, I'm not. I don't suppose we'd have had much in common."

"Apart from overwhelming physical and emotional attraction?"

David glanced down at him as he blew on his fingers. "Apart from that, yes."

John cautiously got to his feet, his fingers clawing at the ice to pull himself up without putting any weight on his throbbing ankle, the ice fire burning his fingertips. That fall hadn't done his bruised ribs a lot of good either. "What makes you say I'm a 'tough guy'?"

David shrugged. "The way you handle yourself, the way you dealt with those guys, the way you look."

"I have a broken nose or something?" John felt it cautiously.

"No. You just look - "

"Like an old boot? What?"

David half-smiled as if to mock what he was saying but his gaze was serious. "Like a hero."

John felt the moment and the silence hang there, suspended. The boy was in love with him. Not infatuated. Not attracted. Not physically drawn to. Head over heels, hook, line and sinker, in love with him. He'd been fighting it from the first minute their eyes had met in that damned cavern. The kid had never been afraid of him. He'd only been afraid of the emotions John was eliciting inside him. "You feel it too."

David was busying himself with the pickaxe, ducking his head down to conceal his expression. "What?"

John reached up and put his hand over David's where it rested on the ice. As he did so he had a strange sensation of déjà vu. He remembered taking someone's hand; holding it too long; his unwillingness to release it; the sense of loss when the hand was removed from his grasp. When he stared up at David he saw the same shock he was feeling in those blue eyes. "I remembered - " John shook his head as the vision vanished again. "Something. Damnit!

"I remembered something too."

It was as they were still gazing at each other that the floor beneath John's feet gave way and he plummeted into the chill darkness below.

***

For a second he was falling to what was inevitable death and the terror was paralyzing, but then he was brought up short with an agonizing jerk that went from his wrist all the way through his arm to his shoulder where it whiplashed straight down his spine. Then a heavy weight jolted through his broken ankle and he cried out in agony. The otherwise insistent pain in his cracked ribs was negligible beside it. Looking down he saw how the cuff around his ankle was now being pulled tight around the break by the chunk of ice wall to which the chain was still attached. The ice itself was swinging over an abyss so deep and so dark it looked as though it was an elevator shaft straight to hell.

Swinging painfully from his right hand, John looked up and saw why he hadn't fallen any further. David had hold of his wrist. There was a look of absolute determination in those blue eyes but John could see the effort it was costing the guy to hold onto him. John snatched a breath. "What's keeping you up there?"

"Pickaxe." David said it tersely. The exertion of holding onto him, leaving his voice ragged.

John thought about how fast David must have acted, grabbing his wrist with his left hand while simultaneously slamming that pick into the ice with his right. "That was pretty quick thinking." John tightened his own grip on David's wrist. He could feel the bones of it through his sleeve. He had hold of David and David had hold of him, but that didn't change the fact he was swinging over an abyss and David had no real purchase to try and pull him up. He moistened his lips, trying to lighten the grimness of the situation. "Like I said, *not* uncoordinated then."

"If sufficiently motivated." David found a smile for him, but there was panic behind the determination in his eyes. "Can you climb up me?"

John tried to reach up with his other hand, but it made his body twist like a corpse on a gallows and set the big chunk of ice swinging agonizingly below him. He felt horribly aware of the chill space all around him. And his actions were dragging David towards him; there was a slight but inexorable movement there. "I'm going to pull you over."

"No." David tried to haul him upwards but John could see it was futile. David had jabbed the pickaxe into the ground next to him and he was now spread-eagled between that handle he was clinging to with such determination and the John's body hauling on his left arm. The weight of John's body was pulling him towards the edge while the pickaxe held him anchored to the ice; David stretched in between the two like the victim of some medieval torture device, while John was locked in his own particular rack between David and the heavy weight of that ankle-tormenting ice. David couldn't pull John up because the pickaxe wasn't far enough away from the edge to give him any real purchase to take so much weight. And John couldn't pull himself up without dragging David over the edge.

As there was a jolt and he found himself hanging another two inches further into the abyss with his heart apparently fighting his tonsils for room, John realized he already was pulling David over the edge.

"We can't do this," he said quietly.

"Yes we can." There was warning in David's voice. And desperation.

"I'm just going to pull you over as well."

"No, you're not. You're going to think of something, damnit!"

John looked up at him. David's eyes were begging him to think of something, anything and his mouth was set in the kind of stubborn line that told John better than a speech that he was going to have to break all David's fingers to make him let go. He felt a flash of anger at the futility of it. He could feel them moving, little by little, certainly, but the pickaxe was clearly cutting a slow furrow through the ice. "There's no point in us both dying!"

"Think of something!"

The anguish in the boy's voice galvanized him even better than his own off-the-scale-terror of plummeting into that darkness. He twisted his head around looking for something, anything, that might help them, but the walls were smooth as glass, there was nowhere he could get a foothold, a toehold, anything. Then he saw the gun lying on its own little plateau about five feet to the left of him. The ice rock it was hanging from would have been spectacular under different circumstances, like a stalactite soaring up from the depths of a hell that really had frozen over. John felt his brain kick into gear, old strategies turning wheels oiled by the conviction that whatever he might have felt in the past, he *didn't* want to die.

"Swing me over there. Where the gun is. Do you see it?"

David nodded, and then swung John back the other way to try to build up some momentum before grunting with exertion as he yanked him towards the gun. John reached for it, but was a good two feet short. "Harder."

"I know." David could barely get the words out, and John wondered if he had his fingers wrapped around that pickaxe head, the frozen metal cutting into his flesh where he was having to hold it so tightly. And that was without even starting on what this must be doing to him, having the weight of John and that big chunk of ice dragging him closer and closer to the edge.

"Hurry!" John urged.

David swung him again, his eyes speaking volumes about the bad things he would have liked to say to someone urging him to hurry when he was already performing one superhuman feat and was now being asked to perform another one. This time John was only a foot shy. "Again."

"I know." David said tautly. He swung John back in the other direction and as he did so, John felt their fingers begin to slip, sweat and exhaustion weakening their previously unbreakable grip. Another jolt told him the pickaxe had cut a furrow in the ice another few inches closer to the edge. He had to get the gun this time or they were both going over. As he swung through the air like a trapeze artist, he was already reaching, throwing himself at that damned gun; willing himself to reach it somehow. His fingertips brushed metal, were sliding back, then they felt nylon and closed, dragging the gun into space by its strap. It felt like an extension of him, something he'd held in the crook of his arm for so long it was as familiar to him as a nursing baby to a mother. He yanked it up and under his arm in an instant, had his finger reaching for the trigger even as he reached the lowest point of his pendulum swing.

The bullets chattered angry music against the chain; dashing themselves against it like hailstones against a window. Blue sparks glittered like fireflies in the dim white darkness beneath him, and then the weight was suddenly gone from his ankle. He cried out with the pain of that relief and David gave an echoing gasp of surprise as the pressure pulling him towards the edge was abruptly halved.

John was suddenly aware of that silence which precedes disaster. He must have skied once because he knew that sound; the mountains shrugging off a fresh snowfall in a way that stilled your heart for two endless beats, because coming behind that light powdering could be an unstoppable white wave of soft enveloping death. As he looked up, he saw the smooth walls which had proven so unhelpful to David's attempts to scale them beginning to shift; shimmering like mirages as they started to dissolve.

They jolted again and his hand slipped. He grabbed convulsively, losing his hold on David's wrist to gain an inferior grasp on his palm and thumb. "Hurry," David breathed it quietly and John knew the pickaxe must be very near to the edge now. It occurred to him how odd it was that there was such faith in the boy's tone. He wondered if David was right and he was the kind of man who could get himself out of predicaments like this, or if it was just the belief David had shown in him which had inspired him to think of something.

As the cavern crumbled all around them, John shifted his grip on the gun, throwing it up one-handed and catching it in the same hand so he held it like a spear, then he jammed it into the ice as hard as he could. As David hauled back with the last of his strength, Jack jammed a foot onto the gun and used it as a foothold to push himself off towards the edge. He felt it go as he sprang upwards but by then David was pulling him with all his might. As John landed on that warm pliant body, he grabbed the front of David's jacket in both hands and rolled them both the hell away from the edge.

As they slammed into a chunk of ice, John looked up in time to see the place where David had been lying drop out of sight, the pickaxe going with it. He looked down and realized he was on top of David who was staring up at him, mouth open in a way that just made you want to kiss him. John did so, but quickly. "Time to go," he said.

He got to his feet so fast he forgot about his ankle. "Fuck!"

David pulled a face. "Not sure this is the time or the place."

John grabbed him by the arm. "Smartass yourself."

"It must be contagious." David looped John's arm around his neck and put a hand around his waist like he'd done it before. John suddenly realized this boy was a lot stronger than he looked, because he was moving them forward at quite a lick.

"Any ideas for how we get out of this place?" he enquired.

The walls were dissolving all around them now, the crash of each collapsing wall begetting another ice slide. The air was powdery with chill white shavings; crystals raining all around them. With his hair full of ice flakes, David met his gaze as they stood beneath the gaping hole in the ceiling, still an impossible twenty-five feet above them. "Nothing's coming to mind."

John felt suddenly calm. He didn't want to die, but if he had to die, at least it could be like this. He put his hands to David's face, looked him in the eyes and said, "Whoever you are, I love you." Then he kissed him.

David opened his mouth to him at once and their tongues curled together tenderly, John looking for that sweep of long dark eyelashes as David closed his eyes in the ecstasy of that kiss. He might have gone his whole life and never been loved for all he knew; but here and now, in this moment, in this eternity, he knew what it was to love and be loved. Words came back to him from some forgotten echo and he breathed them aloud into the warm haven of David's mouth. "This is a good day to die."

David's fingers furrowed through his hair and he murmured, "That's what the Sioux used to say before they rode into battle."

They blinked at each other as they realized this was something they both knew. A little indistinctly because of the tongue in his mouth, David said, "I wonder - "

"O'Neill!"

"Colonel?"

They sprang away from each other like naughty children at the sound of those two voices; one male; one female; both sounding as worried as hell. They shot each other a quick glance of mingled apology and explanation, then realized they were on the same page here and turned their attention to the hole in the ceiling above them.

They were just in time to see the two figures appear, but their gaze went at once to the rope that snaked down to meet them. They stared at it like men in desert who'd just been offered a glass of water. Wanting to believe but it being so much what they wanted and needed they were sure there had to be a catch.

"You must hurry!" That was the man. Glancing up at him, John saw he was wearing the same kind of uniform they were, looked friendly, and most importantly of all looked plenty big and strong enough to haul them up and out of this crumbling cavern. He clapped David on the back, "You first. No arguments. The way this chamber's going, one second's delay and we both die."

David shut his mouth with an audible clicking of teeth and sprang for the rope with alacrity. John nodded in satisfaction. Okay it had taken him a few days but he definitely had the hang of managing this boy now. He held the end of the rope, pulling it at a slight angle to make David's task easier, and was impressed by the way the guy went up that rope hand over hand so quickly like a gibbon after fruit, the chain trailing from his ankle like a silver snake. That's my little Snowmonkey. John realized he might have a doting expression on his face and coughed quickly, trying to look stern. But he couldn't stop his relief showing as David was helped off the rope and onto the floor by the blonde woman with the gun.

Relief which quickly turned to a scowl as she hugged a somewhat bemused David so hard it seemed a miracle his ribs didn't crack.

*Hands off, girly, he's mine.*

John grabbed the rope and started to climb it. It was a lot harder without someone to hold the end for him, and the ice and crystals raining down upon him were a little distracting as well. The rope spun him around in circles as he hauled himself up it. He was robbed of the use of his feet by his broken ankle and so had to rely on arms which were already aching unbearably, each twist punctuated by some new rapid burst of incomprehensible information from the blonde woman. John decided he preferred the big guy with the gold tattoo on his head. Definitely the strong but silent type.

"We thought you were dead...It took us days to find this mine...Because the procedure didn't work on us they ran all these tests to try to find out why...were going to kill us but the Tok'ra arrived in time to...By the time we managed to get the coordinates the whole mine was deserted...obvious there'd been some kind of cave-in...motion trackers...heat sensors...finally got a reading..."

"It is good to see you again, O'Neill." The big guy grabbed his hand and hauled him up onto the ledge beside him.

"Well whoever you are, I'm very glad to see you too."

The woman blinked at him in surprise. "Don't you know who we are, Colonel?"

"We don't even know who *we* are." David explained.

"But then - how were you together?" she asked.

"You mean we knew each other - before?" They both asked it in such perfect unison they darted each other glance of surprise.

"There is no time," the big guy warned.

John didn't remember too much about the journey to the surface. Well he remembered that it hurt one hell of a lot despite the big guy having an arm around his shoulders and helping him along. Those strong arms hauling him forward helped considerably but it was the way the guy kept looking at him like he was *this* close to just slinging him over his shoulder and running with him that kept John limping at a speed that was way past painful and was getting perilously close to agonizing.

He didn't think of himself as particularly macho but there was no way he wanted someone *carrying* him in front of David, for crying out loud. The kid thought he was a hero. The kid was almost certainly wrong, but John didn't want him to know that yet. He really wasn't into shattering anyone's illusions, particularly illusions about him.

The rumbling got louder and louder as the ice caverns dissolved behind them. If it hadn't been for David he would probably have decided it was impossible and given up. After all, he knew he was utterly exhausted, hadn't eaten in so long it was frightening, and had a compound fracture of his ankle; there was no way he could outrun what was basically an avalanche happening beneath his feet. But although David was being pulled along by that blonde woman with the gun - and the way she had her hand proprietarily on his arm was bugging John even in the midst of their situation - David kept looking over his shoulder for John, reassuring himself the man was there. If John gave up, David was going to come back for him, that was obvious. And actually looking up at the man beside him - the very large, very determined-looking man beside him - John had a feeling this guy wasn't going to let him give up either.

As the guy with the tattoo on his head snatched up a pit prop and jammed it under the lintel of the exit just before the walls around it started to shiver, then ushered the rest of them through it like an adult seeing the children out of danger, before catching up with John and putting an arm back around his waist to help him forward, John couldn't help stealing another sideways glance at the guy. If he was honest he was feeling a little tongue-tied. This man really *did* look like a hero. He was so calm, self-possessed, strong, brave, handsome. Damnit, there wasn't a hero box you *couldn't* check for this guy. John darted an anxious glance at David who was darting another anxious glance at him over his shoulder. John managed a watery smile but it was forced. John might have looked good in an ice cavern full of the scum of the galaxy, but how was he going to look now? That blonde woman was pretty good looking and she was acting like David was her own personal property, while this big guy was just so damned... impressive John was having to work hard to stop from getting a bad case of hero-worship himself. And David was so impressionable. And young. And unbelievably beautiful. Everyone who saw him was bound to want him. John had after all.

As they caught up with the two in front, John heard the blonde woman speaking into some kind of communication device. "Meet you at the ship, Dad. Did you get through to Aldwyn? Okay....Understood. ETA at the tel'tak about five minutes. The way this planet is going I think you're going to want it prepped for take-off." She turned and looked over her shoulder. "Teal'c, my Dad says there are some ships from the mining company coming in to do a salvage operation. They're probably going to try and vacuum up the remaining crystals. Apparently they can be very hostile to any craft they think is muscling in on their territory so we might need some fancy flying to get out of here. Are you happy to take the controls?"

Christ, was there anything this guy *couldn't* do?

John stamped down on another little burst of embryonic hero worship as he darted a look at the big guy. He was nodding imperturbably as he said, "Of course, Major Carter."

Of course 'Of course.' John glanced quickly at David who was glancing quickly at him. He saw his own anxiety reflected in those expressive blue eyes. He raised an eyebrow and mouthed 'What a guy!' in a semi-mockery while jerking his head in the direction of the one the blonde woman had called 'Teal'c'. David gave him a rather sickly grin, mouthing back, 'I know!'

The ship with the funny name was an odd metallic-looking object, stark against the snowfields. From a distance it looked like a child's toy, but as they drew closer, John realized the damned thing was huge, like a beached whale that hadn't quite started to rot. As they reached the ramp, there was another guy there waiting for them, older and with seriously receding hair but the kind of wiry fitness that wouldn't have looked out of place on someone half his age. He clapped first David and then John on the shoulder saying in obvious relief, "Daniel. Colonel. That was too damned close. Really thought we'd lost you this time."

Daniel. David was 'Daniel?' John realized how right that sounded. He'd been close with his 'Samuel', 'Benjamin', and 'David', had got bits of the boy's name scattered through those other three names but none of them had been quite right. 'Daniel'. He liked that. That was a name that trickled right down to all the cold crevices inside of him and filled them with warm honey. That was definitely a name he could live with. Would have been a bit of a passion-killer if the kid had turned out to be called 'Eustace' or something.

Beside him the blonde woman was saying gently, "Um - Dad - Daniel and the Colonel got their memories wiped. They don't know who any of us are."

"Really?" The guy stared at him in surprise while the blonde woman ushered David quickly up the ramp and into the dark interior. "But Sam said you two were together when she and Teal'c found you."

"Well we sort of - found each other." David looked over his shoulder at John.

John gave him a reassuring smile. "We certainly did."

The guy who seemed to be the blonde woman's father took John's arm and helped him limp up the ramp while the big guy strode in past them, presumably to take over the controls with the same consummate skill he got people out of crumbling ice caverns. John didn't know whether he wanted to stick a picture of that guy on the inside of his locker or just kick him really hard.

He settled for saying, "Who's Sam?"

"I am." The blonde woman said over her shoulder as she helped David over to a seat with way too much touching for John's liking.

"The big guy - the one with the tattoo - he called her 'Major Carter'."

"Okay let's start this from the beginning." The guy hit a button and the ramp folded up behind them leaving them inside the sudden quiet of the ship. John realized how quiet it was with the sound of the planet crumbling abruptly muted. The other guy helped John over to a seat on the other side of the ship from David and held out a hand. "I'm General Jacob Carter, previously of the United States Air Force, now of the Tok'ra. You're Colonel O'Neill of the SGC, team leader of SG-1. Let's shake."

John did so a little bemusedly. Jacob turned and indicated the front of the ship. "The guy who just saved your butts is called 'Teal'c'. He's a Jaffa and there will be plenty of time to explain what that is later."

John glanced through the doorway at the 'Jaffa' who was preparing for launch with the same calm he seemed to apply to everything. A young dark-haired guy dressed in similar clothes to Jacob was assisting. John recognized the expression on that guy's face - it was the one he was trying to keep *off* his face when that Teal'c guy did something particularly impressive. No way did he want to look that goopy.

Jacob indicated the blonde woman. "The other person who just saved your butts is my daughter, Major Samantha Carter. She's your 2IC."

"And we're both very grateful for the rescue. But who am I?" David held up a finger. "And how do John - I mean - Colonel O'Neill and I know each other?"

"You're on SG-1 as well." Jacob assured him. He looked across at his daughter. "You'd better get Daniel to hang onto something. Think this could be bumpy." He put his arm across John. A precaution which turned out to be wise as the ship suddenly leapt into the air at the kind of velocity which made John feel like something was trying to suck his brains out through his ears.

He might have blacked out for a minute because when he next surfaced to consciousness, the blonde woman was using some kind of alien thingummyjig to cut through the cuff around his ankle. "Teal'c and I can't take our eyes off you for a minute, can we, sir?" she was saying good-humoredly.

David evidently had his attention divided between Jacob and watching anxiously over John, as John saw the immediate relief in those blue eyes as he returned to full consciousness. David gave him a 'welcome back' smile before nodding at Jacob. "Okay, so I understand the Stargate now and I understand what the SGC does and I think I've got the Goa'uld and the Tok'ra pretty straight, but I'm still not too clear about what *I'm* doing on a team of soldiers who go off to visit other - planets."

"I'm a little hazy about that myself." John admitted. "And would someone mind telling me my name? I know David's 'Daniel'." He couldn't help smiling when he said the name. He *liked* that name. It was the kind of name he wanted to say often, with lots of different inflections, just to try out the taste of it on his tongue. "But who the hell am I?"

The Carter woman looked up at him in surprise. "You're Colonel O'Neill, sir."

John blinked. It felt like his name. Yes. But only half of his name. Like something was missing. He nodded towards David. "And that's what he calls me too?"

Carter's face cleared. "Oh I see what you mean. No, Daniel calls you 'Jack'. That's who you are: Colonel Jack O'Neill. Sir, you might want to hold onto something. I need to set this straight away before you do it any more damage."

He looked across at David and saw his own horror reflected in the younger man's eyes. John felt as though someone had just stuck a fist through his stomach wall, grabbed a handful of his intestines and was starting to twist them. "I'm 'Jack'? I'm that macho prick with the mirrors on his freakin' ceiling? I'm - " *I'm that sex-obsessed uncaring son-of-a-bitch I wanted to rescue David from?*

That was when Carter said, "Sorry about this, sir," and jerked his ankle. A pain so intense it was like white-hot lead in his nerve-endings shot from his foot all the way up to his brain. He blacked out.

***

"Colonel?"

He opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that he wasn't cold. The second was that he wasn't hurting. The third that everything was a little blurry but slowly coming into focus. The fourth that the thing coming into focus was the blonde woman called Carter. He seemed to be lying on some kind of sleeping platform inside a doorless chamber. He didn't recognize the room he was in, it looked as though it was in *another* underground cavern, but one with really big dark crystals in the walls this time. Christ, didn't he ever get to go anywhere with trees?

"How are you feeling, sir?"

He shrugged. "Okay."

She had big blue eyes as well he noticed. Remembering the horror in David - Daniel's - blue eyes when they'd both realized who 'Jack' was, he winced. She looked a little hurt. "I'm sorry about your ankle, sir, but I really couldn't leave it like that any longer."

"It's okay, Carter." He sighed the reassurance wearily. "Setting the ankle was fine." As there seemed no reason for him not to sit up he did so and then looked down at himself. His ankle had some kind of strapping around it and although it was clearly much more efficient than a ripped up t-shirt as support for a compound fracture, the sight of it just filled him with another sense of loss. He thought of David-Daniel's long fingers so skillfully slipping the cloth between the cuff and his skin. God, how could he be 'Jack'? Why couldn't he have been anyone else on the whole goddamned planet? Sighing again, he looked at his ribs and saw they were also strapped up. He had a jacket on over the bandage and was still in the same trousers but he was bootless, sockless, and shirtless. Feeling exposed in front of Carter, he pulled his jacket across his chest and coughed in embarrassment. "Something you wanted to say, um - what rank did you have again?"

"Major." She said it patiently and he got the distinct impression that she was used to having to be patient around him. "I've just been talking to Daniel."

"Oh." He looked down at the coverlet of the bed he was on. "How is he?" He'd tried to make it a casual enquiry but he couldn't stop that ache getting into his voice.

Carter sat down on the edge of his bed. "Like you, sir, he's a little confused right now. I think the things you - remembered in that crystal mine have given you the wrong impression."

"Oh I don't think so." He didn't need someone spoon-feeding him pity or white lies. "Dave-Daniel remembered having sex with a guy called 'Jack' in this big bed with black satin sheets and mirrors on the ceiling. I remembered doing some kid up against a wall in my office even though he was kind of lukewarm about it and there was a guard outside the door. Da-Daniel kind of avoided my gaze when he was telling me about his bad memories and I presume that was because the guy who was screwing him had my face. The kid I did up against the wall had his face too. But we both thought we were just projecting. How about that, huh?"

Carter grimaced. "Colonel, it really wasn't how it seems. I have just spent an hour with Daniel trying to persuade him he isn't one step up from a - rent boy, which seems to be the impression he got in those mines. And you are very emphatically *not* someone who exploits his subordinates for sexual kicks."

"So, why is someone who clearly isn't a soldier on my team? Why is a boy like that going on dangerous missions to explore new worlds when he clearly isn't safe to be let out without a keeper? It's because I liked the look of him, isn't it?"

Carter gave him a look of exasperation which suggested this was not the first time she'd been forced to hold this conversation. "Like I've just been telling Daniel, he earned his place on SG-1. Without him there wouldn't even *be* an SG-1, or an SGC. Basically, sir, Daniel's a - genius."

"Genius?" He blinked in surprise.

"He went to UCLA at sixteen. He has two PhDs. He speaks twenty-three different languages. He's *Doctor* Daniel Jackson, an archaeologist who specializes in the study of ancient cultures. He is the only other person on the planet apart from Teal'c who can write and speak Goa'uld. He is also the person who unlocked the riddle of the Stargate. And even that doesn't really give you a taste of how incredibly - special he is."

He raised an eyebrow. "Not just a pretty face then?"

She gave him a very level look, saying with emphasis, "No, sir."

He frowned. "*Two* PhDs? How old is he?"

"Daniel's thirty-five."

"*What?*" He stared at her in disbelief. "That - boy is, I mean - man is - ? Thirty-five? Are you sure?"

He saw a smile playing at her lips. "Absolutely certain, Colonel."

"But he looks about - twenty-five going on twelve."

She shrugged. "Ah well, your theory on that has always been that Daniel only isn't ageing because you're doing it for him." She nodded at his head. "When I first met you, your hair was brown. After eighteen months of going on missions with Daniel, it was mostly grey."

"I can imagine." He thought of the way those guys had moved in on his - teammate in that ice cavern and winced. "I'm presuming we don't generally take him to places where there are a lot of guys who haven't been getting any in a while?"

"It's certainly something we try to avoid, Colonel, yes."

He scratched his jaw. "So - what's the deal with the mirrors on the ceiling and the Jacuzzi then?"

She sighed wearily. "It's a long story."

He indicated his broken ankle. "I don't think I'm going anywhere, Major. Why don't you tell it to me?"

***

As he hobbled along the 'Tok'ra' tunnels, John wondered if it was possible to assimilate this amount of information at one time without your head physically exploding. He didn't know if this was a good idea, but he just had to see - Daniel, because this was way too much for him to have to deal with alone. And anyway, he just had to see him.

"John?"

He turned his head and saw Daniel standing in the entrance to one of those doorless chambers. Daniel was dressed in those Tok'ra clothes and while they'd looked nothing at all on the others, they looked magnificent on him. His hair had clearly been washed and even the marks on his face were barely noticeable. John breathed in sharply because that boy cleaned up even better than he could have imagined. He swallowed. "You look - great."

"You look like you need a hand." Daniel was there in an instant, a supporting arm around his back, helping him limp into the chamber then sit down carefully on the bed.

"So?" John looked up at him and gave him an apologetic smile. "How are you dealing with all this?"

Daniel sat down on the bed next to him and ran a hand through his hair. "Um - okay, I suppose. Did Sam explain to you about the mirrors on the ceiling and the black satin sheets because - ?"

He nodded. "She told me. Some ex-relative-by-marriage of mine owned the place. We were just camping out there while under the influence of alien - suggestion or something."

He remembered realizing his mouth had been open for a while now and closing it with an audible clicking of teeth before saying, "So was it just me and - Daniel who were affected by this Urgo guy or did you and - Teal'c was it? - get affected as well?"

"Oh we were definitely affected, Colonel." And she'd told him about her spree through the southern states visiting every carnival en route and then camping out in barns for the night.

"So you and Teal'c - did the deed too?"

She'd given him a rueful shrug. "We certainly did. Several times."

"And I'm presuming he's really good at that too? No, it's okay, you don't have to answer that. Tell me, does that guy have *any* faults...?" Her little smile had told him that even if the big guy had other failings, his bedroom technique was clearly flawless, and John couldn't help a sigh of resignation. He had that guy on his team working that close to Daniel? What the hell had his old self been thinking of?

Daniel was nodding. "And after we'd had the embedded commands or whatever they were removed from our minds, apparently you and I - kissed - and decided we didn't fancy each other any more. Well that was what you told Teal'c and what I told Sam - apparently."

John looked across at that beautiful mouth and remembered the way they'd been together in the ice caverns. Even without their memories they'd been drawn to each other like iron filings to a magnet. "Okay, then we were either lying or stupid."

"Teal'c thinks we were in denial."

John darted him a glance. "You've spoken to him?"

"Yes. He came into see me. He said we were much more affected by what we'd done together than he and Sam were, and he thought we were in denial of our true feelings. He said the fact we behaved the way we did in those mines proves that there must be a lot of subliminal attraction."

"So he's smart as well as strong, brave, handsome, and wonderful in bed then?"

Daniel blinked at him in surprise. "Um - Jack, he's our friend. He cares about us. He wants us to be happy."

"Right. Don't call me 'Jack'."

"It's your name."

"I'm going to change it. Soon as we get back to Earth I'm telling everyone to call me John."

Daniel looked at him sideways. "I like the name Jack."

He gritted his teeth. "Look - Jack is that son-of-a-bitch who screwed you half a dozen times and didn't even tell you how much he loved you."

Daniel scratched his neck. "Um - actually it was fifteen times, apparently. In eighty-four hours. Which is impressive you have to admit. Oh and you're forty-four by the way. Which makes it all the more impressive."

John groaned. "Fifteen times? Christ, I'm amazed you could sit down afterwards."

"Well, apparently I couldn't."

He buried his face in his hands. "I *hate* who I was."

"Jack - we had some alien microchip telling us all we wanted to do all day was fuck like bunnies and we did what it suggested. It's not like we carried on like that all the time. Teal'c said we were good friends long before we did - what we did. The best of friends, he said."

John jerked his head back up. "Look, Daniel, there is no upside to the way we were with each other before. We spent three and a half years thinking we just wanted to be friends, then we fucked each other's brains out for three and a half days, then we went back to being just good friends again. I mean who the *fuck* was the guy I used to be? It took me ten seconds to know you were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life, and about half that time to know you deserved so much better than a quick grope up against the wall of my office."

"I don't think those three and half days are what we should be focusing on. They're only relevant because they explain why we both had those dreams, but nothing was how it seemed. You apparently have very good taste in home décor, and I apparently have very good taste in men."

John looked up and saw that little smile. He couldn't help responding to it but his heart was still feeling like it had a block of ice swinging from it by a chain. "Carter said you were married. She said I was too. If we get our memories back maybe we're not going to...Look, from what she said, we've already been through this once. We've been in love and thought it was going to last forever and then lost it again. I don't suppose I wanted to go through that once, I'm damned sure I don't want to go through it twice."

"Okay, let's talk about our wives. From what Sam told me about Sha're she was a wonderful person. She was brave and compassionate and beautiful, and I loved her. Well I want to remember the woman I fell in love with. I want those memories back. Even the bad ones. I owe it to the woman I was in love with to at least try to get my memories of her back. Jack, you had a wife you loved and okay your marriage ended but there still must be a hell of a lot of good memories of you and Sara together. Don't you want those back? And you had a *son*, don't you want to remember him?"

John winced. "No! Damnit, no, I don't. Carter said he died. She said he accidentally shot himself with my gun. How the hell do you get up in the morning after something like that? How do you function? How do you exist with that kind of loss every damned day?"

Daniel said gently, "I don't know, Jack. I only know you managed it before and I believe you'll manage it again. He's part of you and I don't believe Charlie's father ever wanted to forget him. I don't think that's really what you want."

John looked at him. "We've been given the chance to start over with no bad memories. No loss. No grief. Nothing."

"Well I want to remember."

"Carter said you saw your parents killed."

"I know."

"You were eight years old, for crying out loud! No kid should have to see that."

"Jack, it's part of who I am, it's part of what makes me - me."

"She said you were fostered. That your grandfather wouldn't take you in."

"I know. She told me everything. Especially the bad things. She said she wanted me to make an informed decision before I agreed to try the procedure." Daniel ran a hand through his hair. "And that's another reason to go through with this. We have very good friends. Sam and Teal'c risked their lives to come and save us. That mine was incredibly unstable and they could easily have died getting us out of there. At the moment we don't even remember meeting them for the first time. Teal'c gave up everything including his wife and son to save our lives but we don't remember him doing it. They have all these memories of us and we don't have any of them. I want to remember meeting the people who wouldn't give up on us even when that mine started collapsing around their ears."

John groaned and lay down on the bed, one hand across his forehead. "Why do I feel so sure that you have talked me into a million things I didn't want to do since the day I first met you, Dr Jackson?"

Daniel smiled. "Oh - that's something else Sam said about you. Apparently you have very good instincts. And you never call me Dr Jackson, by the way. You only ever call me Daniel."

"Dannyboy." Jack sat up again. "I call you 'Dannyboy'. That's what you were trying to remember in that damned mine."

Daniel gritted his teeth. "Sam said you hardly ever call me that."

"I bet I call you 'Danny' too."

Daniel gave him a warning look. "Only when you're trying to sweeten something apparently. Oh - and when we're in bed together."

"How does Carter know what I call you in bed?"

"She doesn't. I've been having a few more flashbacks."

John groaned. "Daniel, please don't make me do this. I don't want to give you up but I did it once so it must be in me to do it again. And I can't do it, okay? I can't."

Daniel sighed. "Jack - I spend my days studying the past. I can't be who I am without access to my memories. Maybe you can go home and be an Air Force Colonel on instinct alone, but I can't be a cultural expert if I don't remember the cultures I'm supposed to be an expert on." He moistened his lips. "Sam said the Tok'ra have a method that might help us get our memories back again and I'm going to ask them to try it on me. I want my memories back again; all of them; even the bad ones. But I don't believe there is anything I can remember that will make me forget how I feel about you right now."

John lay back down on the bed. "Daniel..."

Daniel bent over him and kissed him gently on the mouth. "We're not going to lose these memories, Sam promised me that. We're going to remember everything, yes, but we're not going to forget anything."

John groaned again. "Reading between the lines of what Carter said, I am not always the most even-tempered or patient guy in the galaxy. There may be all kinds of shitty things I've said and done to you over the years that I might not want either of us to remember."

Daniel sighed. "Jack, Sam told me - in the nicest possible way - that I can sulk for my planet and have done on more than one occasion. But we have all this shared history. We're not just two guys who met in an ice mine and fell in love with each other. We know each other really well. Sam says we know each other so well it's almost scary. I want that back again."

John reached up and pulled Daniel down on top of him, smothering his mouth in a passionate kiss before reluctantly drawing back for air. "Why don't we just start from scratch but do the speeded up introduction course?"

"Jack this room has no door."

"Who cares? We're not in our right minds at the moment. We can do any damned thing we want to and no one can touch us for it."

Daniel dragged his gaze away from John's mouth with obvious difficulty. "Okay, then I have this strange preference for knowing something about the guys I sleep with."

"That's a point." John reached up and traced a finger across Daniel's mouth. "Did Carter happen to tell you how many guys you've slept with?"

Daniel moistened his lips, tongue flickering out to follow the warm trail the finger had left. "Well - technically speaking I suppose you could say - two."

"Two?"

"Colonel Jack O'Neill of the SGC. And this guy called John who I let pick me up in an ice mine."

John gave him a level look. "That's one guy."

"No, I definitely think that counts as two. I didn't know you were someone I'd already slept with so as far as I was concerned you were a completely different person."

"Yes, but your subconscious did know you'd slept with me, so it doesn't count."

"Yes, it does."

"No. It doesn't."

"Yes, it does."

"Doesn't."

"Does too."

John grabbed him by the shoulders and rolled him over until he was on top of him. He kissed him again, hard. "Do you ever stop arguing?"

Daniel reached up and stroked a finger down John's nose. "That and all kinds of other questions can only be answered by us saying yes to the Tok'ra mind stuff. Jack, they're not going to take anything away from us except our - ignorance. And ignorance is something I've apparently been opposed to my whole life. The people who enslaved us and put us in those mines to rot took away our memories. This wasn't something we asked for and it certainly wasn't something we wanted."

John gritted his teeth. His ankle was throbbing again. So was his cock. He could smell Daniel's skin and all he wanted to do was bury himself in that warmth and start nibbling. "You have no fear of finding out who you are, have you?"

Daniel moistened his lips. "And you do?"

"Yes!" John ran his fingers through Daniel's hair, staring at that face intently, trying to memorize every line. "I'm afraid that when we wake up we're both going to remember that I don't deserve you. I have blood on my hands. I've killed people."

"Well apparently so have I. So has Sam. So has Teal'c. Seems a little cowardly of you and me to leave them to carry all the guilt by themselves, doesn't it?"

John sighed. "Oh, I remember you now. You're this really annoying genius who is always right about everything and won't ever shut up until I agree with him. Like the world's most irritating smarter kid brother. Only a lot prettier. I bet you drive me *nuts* about fifteen times a day."

Daniel looked at him for a long moment. "You're just guessing."

"But I have very good instincts, remember. Bet you anything I'm right." He dropped a kiss on Daniel's forehead and enjoyed the taste of his skin so much he just had to kiss a little trail down the side of his face. Which brought him back to Daniel's mouth again. He breathed it softly: "Did I ever tell you how much I like the name 'Daniel'?"

Daniel looked up at him innocently. "Actually Sam said you're much more of a 'show' rather than a 'tell' sort of guy...?"

John looked down at Daniel and sighed in defeat. Inside he was terrified, he felt so close to losing Daniel. The thought of going back to a platonic friendship however damned deep and significant it might have been, when he'd had Daniel in his arms to love and be loved by, not to mention to kiss, nibble, lick, stroke, fondle, caress, suck on, and slide into with tender passion, was like being inside a warm furnished room and being shown the way back to a bus shelter. But for the moment he *had* Daniel in his arms and if this was going to be their last - significant interaction, he was damned sure he wanted to make it a good one.

He kissed him; gently but with insistence behind it and Daniel responded to both, opening his mouth and welcoming John's tongue inside. John couldn't disguise some of the desperation he felt as he thought of losing this, kissing him harder and harder. Daniel's fingers closed in his shirt and he pushed John's tongue out of his mouth with his own before saying a little breathlessly. "Jack, I swear, I'm not going to want to give this up even if you are."

John tightened his fingers in Daniel's hair, easing his head back so he could get to that delectable white throat. "I just bet you talk too much out of the bedroom as well." As he began to suck on Daniel's pulse point, he reached down, his fingers finding their way under those Tok'ra robes with no trouble whatsoever.

As Daniel opened his mouth to reply, John gave a gentle but firm pull on the erect cock he'd been seeking and Daniel's rejoinder dissolved into a gasp of pleasure. John kissed another trail up the side of his face and began to nibble behind Daniel's ear. The way Daniel gasped even louder, giving a little jolt like he'd just touched a live outlet, told John he'd just found an erogenous zone that *really* worked for Dr Daniel Jackson. John focused all his attention on the warm and just-beginning-to-squirm body beneath his. He needed to make Daniel naked, and then he needed to make Daniel so happy this hour's work was going to stick even when it had a thousand other memories jostling it for attention. Daniel was determined to go through with this Tok'ra procedure and John guessed that meant he had to go through with it as well. Which meant this might be the last time they ever got to do this.

All John could do now was try to make it as memorable as possible...

***

Jack O'Neill blinked as the room came into focus. He knew that face. That was that Tok'ra dame who'd put the moves on him when he was waiting to find out whether or not he was a - zartog or whatever it was called. He really didn't like her much. She'd used him, Carter, and Daniel for guinea-pigs over those armbands, then she'd used her mind-swirly machine to make him and Carter think they'd been pre-programmed by the Goa'uld to go ape. It was her fault he and Carter had been forced to admit having feelings for each other. When according to Fraiser they hadn't anyway, well no more than they had for anyone else on their team. This woman was trouble he could well do without and if he wasn't such a gentleman he'd be telling her to get the hell away from him right *now*.

"Colonel O'Neill?"

That was the most emotion he'd ever seen her show. She was obviously worried about him. He guessed that must be whatever-she-was-called talking; the one whose eyes didn't glow. The one who'd kissed him. Freda? No. Something like that. Half the time he couldn't tell who was the damned host and who wasn't with these guys anyway, and sometimes you just found yourself thinking a snake was a snake whatever name you called it by. He couldn't remember what this one's snake was called. Daniel always had to remind him.

Daniel? He jerked his head round in panic. "Daniel?"

"He is well, Colonel. The procedure was successful in his case. Is it in yours?"

"What?" He'd kind of lost the thread after she said Daniel was well. "Did you manage to give him back his memory?"

"Yes. And you? Do you remember - ?"

He closed his eyes. "I remember everything." He'd been able to travel light for a while there; put down the burden of memories; he'd been a man with no blood on his hands; no losses; no mistakes; no failures. And now he was Jack O'Neill again. The man who'd done all those damned distasteful things for the US Government. The man who'd shut his wife out so effectively she'd left him. The man who'd given the order to shut down the Stargate so it would kill Kawalsky. The man who'd left his gun where his son could get it.

"Are you not pleased, Colonel?"

She sounded a little hurt. Hey, what do you know, the Tok'ra had feelings too? He focused on her again. She'd probably worked pretty hard to give him back his memory and he wasn't even grateful. The trouble was, he *wasn't* grateful. Because although he was still in love with Daniel just as much as he'd ever been, he just bet Daniel wasn't still in love with him. Round about now, Daniel was probably repeatedly hitting his head against a hard surface while saying, "Why do I keep *doing* that?"

Daniel would be trying to think of one good reason why he would have willingly slept with crabby, unreasonable, never-listens-to-a-damned-thing-I-tell-him, impatient, condescending, ignorant old Jack. Carter would probably be telling him it had something to do with Alternate Universes; that Daniel had been contaminated by going dimension hopping and had picked up some bad habits from other Daniels with less sense and worse taste than him. Teal'c would be nodding gravely, the traitor. Teal'c and Daniel looked much too good together. Every time Daniel put his hand on Teal'c's chest Jack swore he saw actual sparks. Daniel didn't seem to have a clue, but part of Teal'c's old job description had been shopping for good-looking hosts so he just bet Teal'c knew how damned doable Daniel looked, Jack didn't doubt it for a -

What the hell was he doing?

Teal'c was a better man than Jack would ever be and Daniel knew that as well as anyone. Teal'c could probably have taken Daniel from him any time if he'd chosen to. But he hadn't chosen to, either because he didn't want Daniel for himself - which Jack found frankly impossible to believe, as who the hell *wouldn't* want Daniel for himself? - or because he was too decent to tread on Jack's toes. That seemed a lot more likely. Teal'c was clearly leaving the field free for Jack because Teal'c was a damned good friend.

"Colonel O'Neill...?" She sounded downright worried.

Jack blinked and focused on her again. "I'm fine. Remember everything in glorious Technicolor. Thank you."

Saying 'thank you' to a Tok'ra did cost him something but the girl had given him back his memory and managed to do it without turning his brain to mush in the process. That was a big improvement on the last mind-restoration he'd seen her try. And he probably would be grateful to her in the future, when he'd got over the fact Daniel didn't love him any more, was never going to be naked in his company ever again, and was probably going to need psychiatric help to get over having slept with his CO while the balance of his mind was temporarily disturbed. Round about then he'd probably be perfectly willing to shake her by the hand, if not actually put his arms around her neck. But right now he just wanted to go somewhere by himself where he could shake this sick feeling in his guts.

***

"Knock, knock."

Sitting on the bed of his chamber in the Tok'ra tunnels, Jack looked up to find Daniel standing in the entrance, making knocking motions on a door that wasn't there.

Jack managed a brittle smile. "Hey."

"Hey." Daniel came into the room then stood by the wall, his arms wrapped around his chest. "How are you doing?"

"Okay. How about you?"

Daniel shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

God, why did Daniel have to look like that anyway? It would have been tough enough if he'd looked like any other guy, he was so damned special on the inside, but did he have to come with that outer packaging as well?

Daniel moistened his lips. "Are you sure you're okay, Jack?"

He jerked his head up. "No, damnit, I'm not. I had you. Again. And then I lost you. Again. And you talked me into it both times. I'm mad as hell with you, and I'm even madder with myself for having listened to you in the first place."

"I'm standing right here. How can you have lost me?"

Jack narrowed his eyes. There were days he could read Daniel a lot more easily than those books the guy always had piled up on his desk. But there other days - like today - when Daniel was an enigma he was never going to solve. Daniel was telling him nothing, showing him nothing. He was just standing there self-hugging with his face a careful blank.

Jack said it quietly. "You don't love me any more, do you?"

"As a friend?"

Jack groaned and put his hands up to his face. "I knew it. I fucking knew it!"

Daniel was talking quickly. "Jack, maybe you haven't had all your memory come back yet, but I have. You're a serving Colonel in the United States Air Force and you know what that means better than I do. What you and I did in that cavern - and in that damned Jacuzzi - is only okay because you were acting under the influence of an alien technology. Because you weren't yourself. And on this last occasion you didn't know who you were or who I was. Now you do. So now, if we do what we did three hours ago, we can't both stay on SG-1, and you could do twenty years in some Air Force prison for sodomy."

Jack grimaced at the word. It sounded so far removed from what he and Daniel had been doing earlier. "That wasn't - sodomy, Daniel. That was - "

"Technically it was." Daniel was brisk. "And technically, you could go to jail for it. And don't give me that 'don't ask, don't tell' crap. We both know that translates as 'Don't do it and if you do make damned sure you don't get caught'. Jacob may be a Tok'ra but he's also a General in the Air Force."

"He's retired." Jack said it dourly.

"Okay, well Sam's a Major and she isn't retired. And neither of us have the right to put her in a position where she knows we're doing something she is supposed to report. I'm on your team. You're my CO. That means we don't get to do anything except be friends. Which is all I want anyway. And I'm sorry if that hurts you, but that's just how I feel."

Jack looked at him for a long moment; the sick disappointment warring with his anger. He couldn't go on working with Daniel after this. Everything was over. Not just their relationship, but SG-1. He could almost feel the bitterness seeping through him; changing him. You couldn't keep having paradise snatched out of your arms and remain the person you'd been before.

And then he checked out Daniel's body language. The boy was standing there thrumming like an overstrung guitar; hugging himself so hard it was a miracle his ribs hadn't cracked. And his eyes were full of anxiety; more than anxiety. Jack suddenly realized what that expression was in Daniel's eyes. The same expression he'd seen in David's in that ice cavern when he'd been hanging over a cliff and the boy was afraid he wasn't going to be able to take his weight. The one that said he'd rather die than let him fall.

Jack's eyes widened. "I know what this is! You're doing a Violetta on me."

"What?" Daniel darted him a quick uncertain look.

"Never bluff an opera buff; we know every damned dodge in the course of true love not running smooth. And right now, you're doing La freakin Traviata. Well, Daniel, I've got news for you, sleeping with one guy while first very drunk and under the influence of Urgo, and secondly in an ice mine after you've lost your memory, does not make you a courtesan. And what's more I'm not Alfredo and I'm not giving you up. I don't have a stern father - "

Daniel had never looked so much like a kid who'd just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "What about General Hammond?"

"Or a sister whose marital prospects are going to be ruined by me having a relationship with you."

Daniel rallied. "No, but you do have a career that is going to be shot down in flames by you having a relationship with me."

"And what's more, I don't give a damn. Now get over here and kiss me."

Daniel had taken two steps forward before he stopped himself. "No, damnit, Jack, I'm right." He started to back up again.

"Of course, you're right, you're always right. It's just one of the many ways in which you annoy me. But I don't care." Jack sprang to his feet, swore as his ankle gave him a warning twinge, then grabbed Daniel before he could retreat any further than the doorway. He pulled him back into the room and shoved him up against the wall, gently enough that he didn't bruise him, but hard enough that Daniel could see he meant business. "Right now, we're between missions. I'm not in charge of SG-1. And you're not under my command."

As he made to kiss him, Daniel brought up his hand and clamped it across Jack's mouth. He moistened his lips before saying carefully. "If we're off-world I'm under your command, that means the Air Force could decide you were abusing your position as my superior officer."

Jack kissed his palm hungrily, licking the salty flesh until Daniel snatched his hand away. Jack rolled his eyes. "Oh come on! Since when have you ever obeyed any order I've given you? I bet you didn't even know you *were* under my command until Carter told you."

"Not the point." Daniel gave him a warning look which told Jack better than a long speech the boy wasn't going to give in without a fight.

He narrowed his eyes. "Do you know how close I am to just throwing you down on that bed and kissing you all over until you admit you want this as much as I do?"

Daniel gave him the ghost of a smile. "Do you know how close I am to letting you?"

Jack grinned in relief. He'd been pretty sure he was right but it was still nice to have it confirmed. "So you - you do feel the same way?"

Daniel shrugged. "Irrelevant to the matter under discussion. I'm not screwing up your career. And you can't make me."

Jack looked Daniel over carefully. "Okay. Let me spell things out for you. You're absolutely right about 'don't ask, don't tell', it's a crock and everyone knows it. And you're absolutely right about it being technically possible for me to get sent down for - whatevering you. But I don't think there is anyone in the SGC who would want to see that happen so as long as we are discreet and careful enough that everyone can turn a blind eye to what we're doing, or - if possible - remain in genuinely blissful ignorance, I don't see there should be a problem. It's not like we've just met. We're best friends; we're in and out of each other's homes all the time. Nobody thinks anything of it. And we've already had sex and everyone knows about it. And even if he walked in on us actually - doin' it, I'm sure General Hammond would find a way to say we were under the influence of alien technology again rather than report us."

"But - "

"But - " Jack held up a finger. "You're also right that we need to be discreet."

Daniel nodded. "And this, in case you have forgotten, is a room without a door." Jack exhaled. "Just tell me you feel the same way I do and I will stick by any rules you think it would be sensible for us to set. I don't want you to get transferred off SG-1. I don't want Carter and Teal'c to feel that there are any less important to me than you are. And I sure as hell don't want to do twenty years for - " he gritted his teeth but said the word, " - sodomy. But I do want you and I'm willing to make any reasonable compromise to keep you."

Daniel blinked. " 'Compromise'? 'Sensible'? 'Stick by any rules?' Okay, who the hell are you and where are you hiding the real Jack O'Neill?"

Jack reached out, grabbed Daniel by the front of his jacket, then pulled him into his arms. "Damnit, Daniel, now I *have* to kiss you." He did so. Thoroughly. There was initial resistance and then Daniel melted at his touch, eyes closing, mouth opening to welcome him in, warm body going boneless against him. Jack felt the last of his tension drain away and a pleasant anticipation start up in his groin. Daniel was as crazy about him as he was about Daniel. So crazy about him he'd been prepared to be all heroic and self-sacrificing to save Jack's career. You had to love this boy even when you wanted to shake him so hard his teeth rattled.

Jack deepened the kiss and Daniel gave a little whimper of protest but he was still in Jack's arms and still opening his mouth wider to let Jack continue his examination of his tonsils. Which was when Jack jumped back and snapped to attention while hopping lightly on one foot. "General Hammond, what a nice surprise!"

"What?" Daniel spun around in horror and looked at the open doorway. It was empty. He turned back on the man and glared. "Jesus, Jack!"

"Was just demonstrating the speed of my reactions. And you have to remember that our offices have doors."

Daniel put a hand up to his head, swaying a little, lips still swollen and moist from Jack's kisses, then he sat down on the bed and gave Jack a quelling glare. "Just - cut that out, okay. Nothing off-world and nothing on base. No canoodling behind the filing cabinets; no holding hands going through the 'gate; no snatching a quick kiss in between maneuvers. And no sticking your tongue in my ear unless we're in a bedroom with a locked door. Understood?"

Jack saluted again albeit with less enthusiasm. "Yes, Dr Jackson."

"And we don't do or say *anything* that could make Teal'c or Sam uncomfortable, and we certainly don't do or say anything that makes it difficult for Sam to pretend she doesn't know we're - an item."

It occurred to Jack that they seemed to have undergone some form of strange role reversal since that Tok'ra had given them back their memories. "Hey, wait a minute, I'm the one who knows all the Air Force regs, why aren't I telling *you* this?"

Daniel moistened his lips. "Because you have a hard-on and I don't, so I have that much more blood still circulating through my brain right now."

Jack looked down and realized Daniel was right. "I'm going to have to practice thinking about very boring things when I'm in a room with you or people might start to talk."

Daniel got to his feet. "I'm leaving now."

"You're leaving me like *this*?" Jack gave him his best hurt-little-boy look. The one that had been known to work even on Doc Fraiser in its time. But Daniel didn't even waver.

"Did you listen to anything I just said to you?"

Jack sighed. Great, he had a brand new shiny love in his life and he was still having to give himself a hand-job. There was definitely no justice. "At least tell me you love me."

"Not. Here."

He wondered when Daniel had got so damned *stern*. "You know you were a lot more fun when you were David. He was such a sweet kid. *And* he thought I was wonderful. I liked him."

Daniel paused in the doorway. "I was rather fond of that John guy too. He was pretty damned - heroic."

As Daniel headed off, Jack raised his voice, "Hey, I can do heroic. Go stand in a burning building, I'll rescue you!" Daniel walked determinedly down the corridor without a backward glance. Jack lay down on the bed and put an arm across his forehead but he couldn't stop that idiotic grin splitting his face in two however hard he tried. Daniel was in love with him. He hadn't said it. He might have stood there, all folded arms and uncompromising body language, not to mention gritted teeth, but it was true all the same. And whatever Daniel might think there were definitely going to be kisses behind filing cabinets, and probably tongues slipped into ears. But for the moment he was going to let Daniel think he'd won this particular battle. He had a feeling the actual war was definitely going to be his.

***

Jack knew he should probably be listening to this debriefing. He wasn't completely not listening to it. He was vaguely aware of Carter talking and then Teal'c talking, and then General Hammond asking a question every now and then, or Daniel asking a question, and somewhere in his subconscious he was getting a reasonably clear idea of what had happened after the four of them had gated to P35 091. Basically they seemed to have been grabbed by slavers who had dragged them off to their headquarters and put them all through a mind-wiping process which had worked in the case of him and Daniel but hadn't with Teal'c and Carter. So he and Daniel had been sold off to the mine corporation who used slaves and convicts for its workforce while Teal'c and Carter had undergone a lot of horrible experiments while the slavers tried to get the memory erase to work on them. Then the Tok'ra had arrived to rescue one of their own who had also been grabbed by the slavers and had rescued Teal'c and Carter at the same time. Then it had taken Carter a while to work out how to access the slavers' database to find out where they'd been taken, in between arguing with Selmac who thought torture was a legitimate means of obtaining information, and Teal'c, who agreed with him when his teammates were in danger; Carter only having back-up from Jacob who had apparently had a humdinger of a disagreement with Selmac on the subject.

He wondered how that worked. Did you not talk to yourself for a few days until you both cooled off or did you go on shouting insults in the privacy of your own head? He'd have to ask Jacob about that some day.

Jack knew where he stood on torture and he was definitely with Carter on this one. Apart from the bits of him that were with Teal'c because for crying out loud Daniel could have been *raped* in that place...But no, he was definitely with Carter. Mostly.

But it was all happening a long way off anyway because he'd actually spent most of the briefing session looking at Daniel. Or trying not to look at Daniel but being aware of him with an intensity that was almost painful even as he was trying to focus on other people. There had been a time just after he got his memory back when every memory had been too vivid and they'd all had equal weight. He could remember things that had happened when he was a child as clearly as he could remember things that had happened the week before the mission. He'd spent all the hours he wasn't thinking about Daniel retreating from memories which had suddenly acquired too much intensity. Luckily, there hadn't been that many hours when he wasn't thinking about Daniel, and every time he'd managed to wrench his mind away from that fascinating subject he'd found his memories settling back into their old grooves a little more.

Now things were more or less back to the way they should be. Charlie's birth was a dim warm glow he could take out and savor without it clamoring at the forefront of his mind; and hand-in-hand with it came the now more muted pain of Charlie's death. The two were inseparable in his consciousness and that couldn't be altered. And Daniel had been right. Again. No, he wouldn't have wanted to give this up for anything. It still made him feel a little panic-stricken inside that he had actually contemplated losing his memories of Charlie and of Sara. Yes, there was grief there, a lot of it. When the memory of finding his son lying bleeding on the bedroom floor had been as painfully vivid as though it had just happened he had thought he wasn't going to survive it; but now it had faded a little back into its old niche, he could live with it. And for nothing and no one did he want to give up the memory of Charlie himself. Or of Sara. He wasn't going to kid himself he'd never truly loved before until now. What kind of a guy would that make him if at forty-four he'd only just discovered love? He'd loved Sara and she'd loved him and they'd had a lot of wonderful days together. So many days they added up to years of happiness. And yes, there was a lot of regret there that he'd fucked up when she needed him most; but regrets were part of life, they didn't negate all those years that had gone before. The point was he'd almost lost a lot of good memories along with the bad ones and he was so glad Daniel had talked him into letting the Tok'ra give him back his past.

He darted a glance across at Daniel and was just in time to see Daniel quickly look away from him. Jack had to work hard to conceal a smile. Daniel was as focused on him as he was on Daniel; he could feel the heat coming off him; it was a miracle the air between them wasn't physically crackling with the intensity of their interest in one another. All the colors seemed brighter just because Daniel was in the room with him. This was like being a teenager again. But without the acne. Thank God.

Daniel gave a little start and Jack realized General Hammond had just asked Daniel a question for the second time.

"Um - we didn't really recognize each other, sir. I think it was just chance. Jack helped me out when I was - struggling in that place and we sort of - bonded."

Jack looked up. "Yes, that was pretty much it. Daniel wasn't having a very good time and I found myself wanting to help him. I don't know if it was because there was some kind of - subliminal recognition or not, but I don't think so." I think I just really liked the look of him and he seemed so damned defenseless...

"Well Dr Mackenzie will probably find that aspect of your experience fascinating." Hammond said it drily.

Jack swallowed. Oh yes, that was exactly what he wanted, some head doctor asking him lots of trick questions about what he'd been thinking when he'd looked across and seen Daniel with a chain around his ankle in that ice cavern. "Well he can wait until we write up our memoirs," he said quickly. "A psych evaluation is the last thing I want after having first those damned slavers and then the Tok'ra rummaging around inside my head. I'm still trying to get the furniture straight again. Those guys pretty much trashed the place you know, sir."

Daniel darted him a quick look then rubbed his temples. "What Jack means, sir, is that although we got all our memories back in more or less the right order they're still - settling back into their old places. I wouldn't feel comfortable about talking to a psychiatrist right now."

Hammond nodded. "Understood, Dr Jackson. And I think you've probably spent long enough on this. Why don't you go home and get some rest?"

Daniel nodded. "Thank you, sir." He looked across at Jack, saying casually. "Is it Friday? I've kind of lost track."

Jack grabbed his cue eagerly. "Yes, it is. And no you can't get out of watching the game with me. And yes it is your turn to bring the beer. And the pizza. And no damned mushrooms on mine. How can a guy with all the PhDs you have still be incapable of remembering I don't like fungi on my food?"

"How can a guy of your age still eat Fruit Loops for breakfast?" Daniel countered, getting to his feet.

Jack gave an involuntary shudder. He was never touching another bowl of Fruit Loops for as long as he lived.

General Hammond gave them an indulgent smile. "Dismissed, everyone. Why don't the four of you go and catch up on your sleep."

"Will do, sir." Jack tried to stop that smile breaking out but it was determined to make its presence known.

He deliberately didn't look at Daniel, suspecting he would probably be glaring at him for what he would perceive as an indiscretion. He had a feeling Daniel was going to perceive *everything* as an indiscretion for a few days.

Jack made a point of asking the general about their next mission briefing so as to give Daniel a chance to get out of the door ahead of him. He gave him five minutes start and then limped towards his office. It still felt a little odd not to have a chain trailing behind him when he walked; he wondered if Daniel felt unbalanced without the weight of that cuff around his ankle as well. As he reached his office he saw there was a message stuck to his door handle:

'Jack. Don't forget I'm coming over tonight. BUY COFFEE. Daniel.'

Jack grinned. Talk about hiding in plain sight. No one was going to suspect them while they so clearly had nothing at all to conceal. As he unstuck the message from his door, he turned around to find Teal'c standing by his shoulder. He jumped. "Jesus, Teal'c, don't *do* that!"

The Jaffa regarded him levelly. "Are you recovered from your ordeal, O'Neill?"

"I'm fine."

"Daniel Jackson suggested that I drive you to your home."

Jack frowned. "Why can't Daniel do it? He's coming over tonight to watch the hockey game."

"So you have mentioned, O'Neill. More than once."

Jack darted Teal'c a quick look but his face was unreadable. He felt all the same that he'd just been warned not to get cocky. He might be more transparent than he realized. "So - he's happy to lie around on my couch all evening but he doesn't want the bother of driving me home?"

"He said he had other matters to attend to which could not wait. Are you ready to depart?"

Teal'c was being a little stern with him, Jack thought. He wondered if Teal'c disapproved. The urge to say, 'You don't think I'm good enough for him, do you?' was almost overwhelming, but he bit it down. That definitely wouldn't count as being discreet. As Teal'c was walking him to the elevator he darted him a quick glance. Jack shrugged and said casually, "You know, Teal'c, when I didn't - know you, I thought you were pretty much the most impressive thing I'd ever seen."

Teal'c gave a slight nod of the head. "So Daniel Jackson has mentioned."

"Oh - he did, did he?" *Just you wait until I get you home, Daniel!* "Well, just wanted to say I'm very grateful to you and Carter. Sorry I didn't throw my arms around your neck when you got us out of there - things were a little - "

Teal'c pressed the button of the elevator with undue force. "I do not approve of the laws of your military, O'Neill."

"You - uh - I'm sorry?" Jack looked over his shoulder but there was no one else in sight.

"On Chulak such a union would be cause for celebration, not concealment. However, Major Carter has explained to me that within the SGC that is not the case. You may rely on my discretion."

Jack looked at Teal'c's face. Disapproval was coming off the Jaffa in waves. He was angry as *hell* on Jack and Daniel's behalf. Jack was so unexpectedly moved by that he couldn't speak for a moment. He reached out and touched Teal'c's shoulder.

As the doors of the elevator opened they both waited with blank expressions for the airman to step out. Seeing it was Siler, Jack gave him a brief nod. For the first time he noticed that Siler was a pretty good-looking guy. Christ, was he going to be eyeing up guys now? Then he realized this was his 'possible competition' meter kicking in. Oh right, no, he was clearly just going to be the insanely jealous type, well that was comforting. He'd probably insist on scheduling off-world missions every time Major Davis came to visit. And next time he saw Zipacna the guy had better not think about looking twice at Daniel or he was going to be so full of holes they could use him for a solitaire board. Apart from that he was clearly going to remain completely unaffected.

They stepped into the elevator and as the doors closed behind them, Jack said quietly. "Thank you, my friend."

Teal'c looked at him sideways. "If you are ever in need of my assistance in this matter, O'Neill, it is yours."

With his mind still running on possible competition, Jack wondered for a minute if Teal'c was offering his assistance in bedding Daniel. *Think I can manage that okay by myself, actually, Teal'c.* But then he realized what he was saying and his eyes widened. "Um - Teal'c, murdering or maiming anyone who should happen to see Daniel and I - canoodling to stop them reporting us - *isn't* an option."

Teal'c looked straight ahead. "Given the likely consequences should they pass on this information, it may become a necessity."

"No, it won't." He couldn't be more certain about that. "Because Daniel and I aren't going to do anything that would make people suspicious. Not here. And not off world. So, no killing people, okay? And you do know Carter can't - that none of us can discuss this with her? I mean she knows and we know she knows but we all have to pretend we don't know or it's her career on the line as well as mine."

"Daniel Jackson has explained this to me." The look on Teal'c's face showed what he thought of that kind of deception.

"This must seem pretty strange to you."

"It does." That disapproval was still radiating off the Jaffa like aftershave.

Jack scratched his jaw. "You don't - mind? You know - me and Daniel? You think I'm - good enough for him?"

Teal'c gave him an assessing sideways glance before looking straight ahead again. "That remains to be seen."

"Oh." Jack leant back against the wall of the elevator. He darted Teal'c a reproachful sideways glance Daniel could have been proud of and then noticed that little smile playing around the Jaffa's mouth. "Oh right - tease the old guy. Damnit, Teal'c, I've got enough insecurities of my own without you making them worse."

"O'Neill, according to the tradition of Chulak, when one warrior saves the life of an another, reparation can be made in many ways. When a prisoner in those mines you saved Daniel Jackson from dishonor. By Jaffa law, that makes you worthy of any gratitude he should choose to offer you."

Jack frowned. "Well, you've saved my life. And Daniel's. Loads of times."

"As you and Daniel Jackson have saved mine."

Jack darted him another look. "Daniel knows about this - Chulakian thing, doesn't he? Has he offered to make - reparation to you?"

Teal'c's expression was forbidding. "That is not your concern. He is not your property nor are his actions yours to control."

Jack gaped at him. "I don't remember you coming out with that theory when it was your wife we were talking about."

Teal'c raised his chin. "Daniel Jackson is not your wife."

Jack thought for a minute. He knew this guy and he knew Daniel. And they hadn't - done it. Jealousy and hormones might tell him one thing, but instinct and commonsense told him the opposite. He knew damned well he was the only guy Daniel had slept with. He could still remember that first time in the Jacuzzi, and for someone who'd spent so many years reading about the stuff other people did to get their kicks through the ages Daniel, although a fast learner, had been surprisingly clueless when it came to trying it out for himself. He guessed that was proof of the vast chasm between theory and practice. He looked at Teal'c through narrowed eyes. "I know you and Daniel haven't done it, and I don't know if that's because Daniel explained how the warrior reparation thing isn't part of his culture, or if he did offer to show his gratitude that way and you turned him down. But I know you've never done it." He tried to keep that question out of his last sentence.

Teal'c looked completely unperturbed. "Just so, O'Neill."

Jack gritted his teeth. Teal'c was looking so annoyingly superior he just bet Daniel had offered at some point. But Teal'c of course was so damned noble he hadn't allowed him to make the - sacrifice. While Jack, by contrast, had, of course, let Daniel make the 'sacrifice' over and over in that Jacuzzi, bedroom, kitchen table, stairs, Jack's office, not to mention once in that ice cavern, and again in that doorless Tok'ra chamber. Because Teal'c was sickeningly perfect and he - wasn't. He said conversationally. "You know there are times, Teal'c, when the urge to hit you is almost overwhelming."

That little smile playing around Teal'c's mouth was pretty maddening too. "Indeed."

As he stepped out of the elevator after the Jaffa, Jack thought how right Daniel had been to say what good friends they had. Whatever hidden yearnings Teal'c might have for Daniel he was never going to let them see daylight as long as he knew Jack was in love with their teammate. And what's more he would defend them both to the death even against the dangers of their own indiscretion. Which made him think of how Daniel had been right *again* in insisting that they never ever did anything on base that might get them caught. And then there was Carter who had put herself through telling them both all the worst things that had ever happened to them so they could make their decision about the Tok'ra memory restoration idea knowing all the bad stuff they were going to be getting back. How many people with a stake in them remembering the last three years would have been that punctilious? And having first clued in Daniel and Teal'c on the way the Air Force worked, she was now playing the three wise monkeys all by herself. He knew she would sacrifice herself for them if she had to. She'd screw up her own career and lie on oath to keep them safe if she had to and he didn't doubt it for an instant. It was their job to make sure she never had to.

***

Seeing Daniel's car parked outside his house made Jack's heart start beating faster. How teenage was that? This was insane. He'd been working with this guy for years. This wasn't anyone to get excited about, this was just...Daniel. Nope. He couldn't make 'Daniel' sound anything other than damned exciting. In fact the word sent little shivers from the top of his skull right down to the tips of his toes. He clearly had it badly.

He looked back at Teal'c in surprise when he didn't switch off the engine. "Aren't you coming in?"

Teal'c reached across and pulled the passenger door of the jeep closed behind Jack. "Daniel Jackson has assured me he has no objection to being left alone with you, O'Neill."

Jack just caught that secretive little smile as Teal'c pulled away. He raised his voice, "You know I liked you a lot better when you didn't know how to make fun of me!"

"Why don't you yell a little louder in case there are some of your neighbors who don't know you're back yet?"

Jack turned around too quickly, forgetting his ankle wasn't able to take his weight yet, and almost over-balanced. Daniel was standing in his doorway waiting for him. Jack gazed at him for a moment, drinking him in. Daniel had clearly rushed home before Jack partly because he wanted to have a shower as his hair was all damp and tousled-looking. And he had changed into some of the clothes Jack and Carter had forced him to buy. He looked so good Jack just wanted to get out the whipped cream and start licking.

He and Carter had both snapped at pretty much the same moment. Daniel had been wearing the same godawful clothes since Jack had first met him. Every time there was some kind of special occasion, Daniel would dig out one of his hideous jackets and pants that didn't fit, throw on a shirt that looked in need of ironing, borrow a tie from anyone who had one, then wander around the SGC tugging awkwardly at his sleeves and looking like every academic on every damned campus in North America.

Even when Jack had been in the middle of that terrible scene when he'd had to lie to and alienate his best friend in order to infiltrate Maybourne's rogue SG unit, part of Jack's mind had been thinking, 'Where *does* he get those damned awful shirts from?'

In the end, he and Carter had just turned up on Daniel's doorstep with a plan of action. Carter had a bag of chocolate walnut cookies. Jack had a can of gasoline and a box of matches. As Daniel had blinked at them in surprise, Carter had put the cookies in his hands, saying, "These are for you, Daniel."

Which was when Jack had held up the gasoline and the matches and said, "And these are for your wardrobe. Unless you come shopping with us. Now."

Daniel hadn't exactly gone quietly but he had at least gone.

Looking at his teammate now, Jack took pride in his appearance. They had worked quite the transformation. Daniel was wearing one of the pairs of chinos Jack had picked out for him, saying, "Trust me on this, Daniel, these will look good on you." Proving Jack could take up prophecy in his spare time because Daniel looked *damned* good in them. And then there was that zip-up sweater vest he'd bullied him into buying four of, the ones about which Daniel had kept saying bemusedly, "Isn't this the kind of thing that kids wear?" Proving he had missed the point entirely. He and Carter had already worked it out between them and decided there was no point in buying Daniel Armani; what would suit him best was what the really fashionable ten year-old was wearing but in Daniel's size. Not bothering to explain this, Jack had taken the sweater vests from him and handed them to Carter before saying firmly, "Daniel, I am burning everything in your closet in two weeks time, so you buy some clothes that actually fit you or you drive to work naked. Your choice." Carter had found him a jacket but they'd let Daniel buy his own underwear. Well, Jack had made him change a couple of the pairs of boxer shorts and sent him back to get a different kind of socks, but they had at least let him make some of the selections himself.

Then it had just been a case of shoveling him back into the jeep with all his purchases, driving him home, telling him to go and have a shower *now*, then making him try out his new clothes by the simple but effective method of first removing everything else from his closet, next spreading the shiny shopping bags invitingly across the bed while he was in the shower, and then pushing him into the bedroom wrapped only in a towel.

He'd come out looking shy, damp, slightly rumpled, and so ludicrously handsome that both Jack and Carter had done a double-take at the transformation.

"Wow." Carter had looked at Jack in astonishment. "I feel like one of those people in magazines who help do the 'before and after' layouts."

Daniel had fingered the material awkwardly. "This feels - different."

"That's because it's the only thing in your closet that isn't polyester." Jack had walked around him, a little taken aback by the way Daniel looked. "Well - that's a definite improvement. Next week we're going to buy you a proper suit so when some visiting dignitary turns up you have something smart to wear." He'd felt disconcerted by the transformation of Daniel and even more disconcerted when Carter took Daniel's elbow and towed him gently in front of the mirror so he could see himself.

"You look great, Daniel," she'd told him. "Really wonderful."

Daniel had stared uncertainly at his reflection like he had no idea who that guy was and Jack had felt pretty much the same way. He'd been thoroughly unsettled by Daniel looking that good. On the way back he'd told himself it was because he liked to think of himself as the only guy on SG-1 with style. He was the one with the good dress sense and that was one of the few things he had that Daniel didn't. Alpha male muscle flexing: that was all this was. He hadn't wanted Daniel looking so handsome in front of Carter. Yeah, right. Those hormonal stirrings should have tipped him off a long time ago that he and Daniel were meant to be more than just good friends.

"Jack?"

Jack blinked and collected himself. Daniel was looking at him in perplexity. "Are you going to stand there all evening or do you want to come inside?"

Jack shrugged, trying to save face. "Just admiring the scenery."

He waited for Daniel to make a withering remark but Daniel just stood there looking back at him until Jack was discomfited enough to glance over his shoulder. "What?"

Daniel turned his head away to hide that little smile but Jack still saw it. "What?" he repeated.

"What, I can't admire the scenery too?"

Jack limped up to the doorway in double quick time and Daniel must have seen from the look in his eyes that he was going to get kissed because he backed up quickly, hissing, "Not in public."

Jack bounded through the doorway as athletically as he could given his handicap, kicked the door shut behind him with this bad foot, swore as it jarred all along his ankle, and then pulled Daniel into his arms. He kissed him hard then said breathlessly, "You look so wonderful in those clothes it almost seems a shame to make you take them off, but you know I think I'm going to."

"In a minute." Daniel put his hands on his shoulders and gently eased Jack back. "I need to give you something first."

Jack wrinkled his nose. "Can't it wait until after I've lathered you in baby oil?"

Daniel returned his gaze without so much as blinking. "Actually - no."

Jack sighed, limped across the living room and sat down in his armchair. The way Daniel fetched him a beer without him even having to ask for it was simultaneously sweet but spooky. "Tell me you're a wonderful cook as well and I might have to marry you."

"I'm a lousy cook and so are you." Daniel reminded him, sitting on the edge of the couch. Jack was touched to see that Daniel had fetched himself a beer as well and was trying to look like he wanted to drink it. "And married couples can't serve on the same unit."

"Jeez." Jack shook his head. "I spend three years trying to get you to grasp the absolute basics to stop you getting your head shot off with no success whatsoever, and now suddenly you're a one man walking dictionary of Air Force regulations."

He noticed that Daniel had put down his beer and was holding something, turning it over nervously in his fingers. Jack jerked his head at what Daniel was fiddling with. "What you got there?"

"Um - " Daniel got to his feet and came over to him quickly. "This is for you. But it's not from me." He shoved the tickets into Jack's hand like he was taking no responsibility for them.

Jack stared at what Daniel had given him in perplexity. Two sets of season tickets. A wonderful present if this meant Daniel was prepared to freeze his butt off coming to watch hockey with him. The way Daniel felt about sports that really was true love. He looked up. "Not from you?"

"No." Daniel had backed over to the sofa and was resting on the arm of it again. "They're from - David."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "From David?"

"Yes." Daniel picked up his beer. "You know, that guy you didn't know from Adam who you befriended in those ice mines. The one you helped; gave your crystals to, got food for, and who you were nearly killed trying to save from those other men. The one you were nice to just because you're a decent man who I'm proud to call a friend. Remember him now?"

Jack closed his fingers around the tickets. "Oh there's no danger of me ever forgetting him, Daniel. He was that incredibly stubborn kid who threw himself on top of me to stop those guards beating me to death, dug me out of the ice as well as any Eskimo, then wouldn't let go of me even when I was pulling him over a cliff. I don't think he's someone I'm ever likely to forget."

"Well he's very grateful for what you did for him."

Jack beckoned and Daniel came over to him a little unwillingly. "What?"

"I've got something I want you to give him."

As Daniel got near enough to grab, Jack grabbed, pulled him down, and then kissed him passionately, reveling in the silky feel of Daniel's damp hair against his fingers, the soap-scented smell of his skin, the flavor of that delectable mouth. When he released him, Daniel backed up slowly. Jack picked his beer back up. "That was for David. Tell him thank you from me for the season tickets."

Daniel swayed a little. "Um - he says you're welcome."

"Can you and I have a conversation now or do we need to keep referring to each other in the third person?"

Daniel sat back down a little heavily. "We can talk."

"Okay, why do you keep going all the way over there when you know I want you to come back over here?"

Daniel took a quick sip of his beer, murmuring into the bottle indistinctly, "I'm nervous."

Jack stared at him. "You're what? With - me? Why?"

There was a long pause before Daniel looked across and met his eye. "Because it's you and me."

"And?"

Daniel waved a hand between them. "You and me, Jack. I mean - it's us. Don't you think that's a little weird? I've been working right next to you all this time and now suddenly you're..." Daniel shrugged. "You know."

"Tell me anyway."

"No." Daniel darted him a quick glance. "You'll get a swelled head."

Jack looked him in the eyes. "Well sitting here looking at you, Daniel, I'm getting a swelled something else. Which I believe is nature's way of telling me we should be having sex." As Daniel immediately wrapped his arms around himself, Jack frowned. "You don't want to? That's okay, really. We can take this as slow as you - "

Daniel ran a hand through his hair. "I - don't - I mean. I know we've already - done it."

"Seventeen times. No, eighteen times if you include that blow job I gave you in my office."

"But we weren't - us before."

At last he knew where Daniel was coming from. Jack opened his mouth then closed it again. "Okay, I got you. We've done it under the influence of Urgo, and we've done it when we were John and David, but we've never really done it just as - us. Right?"

"Right."

"And you have no idea what we're going to be like."

Daniel nodded. "Yes."

"And you're worried it might not be as mind-blowing as it was before, now it's just boring old you and me?"

Daniel grimaced. "Well I wouldn't have phrased it quite like that but..."

Jack hauled himself to his feet and hopped carefully across the room. He put his beer bottle down on the coffee table, leant over and kissed Daniel on the forehead. "Well, I don't think I'm going to be able to manage fifteen times in eighty four hours again. And I can't guarantee to be able to get an erection in sub-zero temperatures on a regular basis. But I can promise you that sex between you and me is going to be absolutely wonderful. Every single time."

Daniel glanced up at him sideways. "And you - know this for a fact?"

As Jack looked at Daniel he couldn't stop that smile breaking out that just wouldn't be suppressed. He could feel the heat between them like a tangible entity. Suddenly he could believe in those nintendos Carter insisted were always flowing through things. There was sure as hell something flowing between him and Daniel right now, little tiny pulses of love, trust, respect, affection, not to mention that uncanny awareness of one another, another self living outside your skin, the sense of connection, that incredible skin-prickling force of attraction. "Oh yeah." Jack said it softly. He began to hop backwards in the direction of the bedroom, beckoning to Daniel to follow him.

He hopped up the stairs, still beckoning and hopped backwards into the bedroom with Daniel trailing after him. Jack was still hopping as he began to unbuckle his belt.

Daniel hesitated in the doorway, then spoke rapidly: "Okay, the truth is, I'm worried that when you're not under the influence of Urgo, not drunk, and with your own memory back again, that you're not going to find me - " He swallowed. "Um - Jack we kissed when we ourselves and you said it didn't do anything for you."

Jack hopped to the bedroom door, pulled Daniel gently into the room and shut the door behind him. "I lied. You said you were over me. I was saving face. Now why are you wearing clothes in the bedroom? There are no clothes in the bedroom in my house."

Daniel pulled off his sweater and tossed it onto a chair. "Don't you think we ought to talk about this some more?"

Jack grabbed a handful of Daniel's t-shirt and towed him towards the bed. "No, I think you should get naked and we should have sex. Which is something you have to *do*, Daniel. There isn't a board game version. And you can't write a paper on it. You just have to do it."

Daniel swallowed again. "Um - "

Jack grabbed his face in his hands and pulled him in for a kiss. For a second he was aware of that rigid resistance; Daniel trying to think his way through something that only needed to be felt; and then he got what he was hoping for; the moment when Daniel went all warm and pliant in his arms, eyes closing, mouth opening, sighing with defeat. Jack kissed him more insistently and suddenly Daniel was sucking on his tongue, arms were going around him, hands were clasped to the back of his head; Daniel was pulling him down onto the bed; kissing him back harder and harder, Daniel's legs were wrapped around his body and an eager groin was rubbing against his.

Jack was gasping for breath by the time Daniel let him go. "Wow. Way to go, Dannyboy."

Daniel ran a hand through his hair. He looked all flushed and tousled and rather deliciously embarrassed. He said breathlessly. "You said no clothes in the bedroom, Jack. Why the hell are you still wearing underwear?"

Jack blinked at him in surprise. "Good question. Why are you?"

"Good question." They both began to tear at their own clothes, and then unable to bear the sight of the other's inept struggles, reached across to pull at unyielding cotton, tugging at bootlaces, zippers, and buttons with increasingly frenzied determination.

"Damnit to hell - " Jack pulled his shirt off over his head and threw it in the direction of the chair before diving back onto Daniel and tugging ruthlessly at his trousers. He yanked on them so hard he pulled Daniel two foot down the bed, but then they were off and he could throw them after his shirt. He had to hop a little to get out of his boxers but was spurred on by the sight of Daniel wriggling more gracefully out of his underwear. Daniel made an attempt to mimic Jack's bravado and tossed his boxers in a graceful arc across the room then nodded his head at the strapping on Jack's ankle. "Isn't that going to slow you down a little?"

"It'll be fine." Jack insisted. No way he did he want Daniel going all noble on him again. He threw himself down on the bed next to Daniel. Daniel was biting his lip and looking anxious again. Jack reached across and ran a finger up the side of his face. "Damnit, Daniel, will you stop looking like this is an exam you think you're going to fail? We're supposed to be having fun here."

Daniel made a rueful face. "I just want it to be - perfect."

Jack grinned. "Well it won't be. Get used to it. Life isn't. But I bet you anything it will be pretty damned close."

***

It was no good, he *had* to piss. Jack wanted to stay right where he was, preferably forever, but obviously even beer you had licked from a naked archaeologist's chest made its way to your bladder eventually. He ran his fingers gently through Daniel's hair, something he'd been doing absently for over an hour now. Daniel was in the same position he'd been in four hours ago when he'd fallen asleep to the soothing rhythm of Jack's heartbeat against his perfect lobeless ear. His mouth was half-open, his breath sending a warm breeze across Jack's chest hair.

Jack's left arm had gone numb where Daniel was lying on it, while the long bare leg wedged between Jack's legs was something his groin was a little too aware of. In fact having Daniel's naked, relaxed body draped half over his was sending wake-up messages to his cock that he really didn't want to listen to right now. The bedroom smelt of sweat and semen, which might have been unpleasant if it hadn't been so unmistakably his and Daniel's sweat and semen scenting the air. That made it sweeter than honeysuckle. Even the spilt beer smelt pretty damned good to him right now, knowing as he did that most of it had been spilt all over Daniel. With its assistance he had managed to map most of Daniel's ticklish places pretty successfully. The one at the base of his ribs that made him curl up and giggle helplessly had been the most fun but the others had been extremely satisfactory as well.

Daniel had been a lot more nervous *as* Daniel than he had ever been in either of the previous two incarnations in which Jack had introduced him to his erogenous zones. And nervous of different things. The Daniel he'd seduced in the Jacuzzi had been anxious about the physical process of Tab A going into Slot B. Despite his Urgo-driven willingness to do whatever Jack wanted, it had still taken a lot of whiskey to get him relaxed enough for it to be physically possible. He'd kept looking at Jack's cock and saying 'No way in hell is that going to fit, Jack!' Jack had been forced to pull him down onto his lap in the warm bubbles and had kissed, nibbled, then laved his ear while simultaneously pumping his cock until Daniel had forgotten all about his objections. Having reduced him to a writhing squirming jelly, Jack had then managed to slide inside him sweetly and painlessly. After that, of course, Daniel had been all for the idea, which was probably another reason why they'd ended up having rather too much of a good thing.

'David', in contrast, had been so besotted by 'John' he'd had no fears about anything except someone walking past and seeing them. Jack was pretty sure Daniel felt the same tiny twinge of loss when he thought of 'John' that Jack did when he thought of 'David'. He was very glad to be who he was again, but as interludes went that one had been particularly sweet.

With the memories of having done it before and knowing he liked it, Daniel hadn't had any worries about the actual process, but he had been very nervous about the emotional implications. A few times Jack thought Daniel had come worryingly close to saying, 'Look, Jack, this is silly. I can't do this with you. I know you too well.'

Even when he'd had Daniel naked and flat on his back on his bed, and been licking and sucking Daniel's nipples to aching hardness, there had been a few murmured protests from Daniel about things that were way too Freudian for Jack to want to listen to. All that stuff about how Daniel was already worried he was too emotionally dependent on Jack, and how Jack's opinion probably mattered too much to him anyway, and could it ever be a really equal relationship when - He'd made sure Daniel didn't get any further than that - if the boy kept talking he might be able to convince both of them this was a bad idea - by kissing a rapid trail down Daniel's body and then swallowing him to the root. To give him his due, Daniel had tried to formulate a sentence even then, but Jack had been ready for him and had slipped a lube-coated finger up inside him to find his prostate gland.

Daniel hadn't really said anything coherent after that. He'd been much too occupied in gasping out 'Oh God's then screaming Jack's name.

And then Jack had thought the best way to prove to Daniel that them having all kinds of sex was definitely a *good* thing even when they were in their right minds and knew their own identities, was for them just to go ahead and have all kinds of sex. He'd combined preparing Daniel with deep-throating him so skillfully that Daniel had hardly even noticed he'd been stretched. And he'd still been on such an orgasm high that when Jack had punctiliously asked him if he was sure he was okay about...? Daniel had just canted up his legs and opened his thighs without a word.

Nor had the new set of 'Oh God's that had greeted Jack's slow entrance been the protesting sort. And the manner in which, half way through Jack's careful slide inside him, Daniel had wrapped those impossibly long legs around him and pulled him all the way in, had definitely suggested acquiescence of the most enthusiastic kind.

One of the nicest parts had really been later when Daniel had grabbed him, rolled on top of him and started nibbling his way all over Jack's body with the enthusiasm of a hungry puppy who had just been given a new treat. That was when Jack figured Daniel had pretty much accepted playing hard to get was no longer an option.

And he wasn't an idiot; he knew why Daniel had reservations about letting go in front of him. He was, after all, the same guy who had snapped at him way too many times; who didn't listen to him if he used more than three sentences to explain something, however complicated; the guy who had effectively seduced Daniel on previous occasions into thinking that he would always be there for him whatever, and then hadn't been there for him in that padded cell; who had acted like they were joined at the hip and total equals at last after far too many years of treating Daniel like a ten year-old, then had turned around told him their friendship had no foundation. There was a basic instinctive level at which Daniel trusted him completely; always had, and please God, always would. But on an intellectual level Daniel had been bitten a few times and had reason to be shy. So he could understand why the Daniel who'd had to take so much of Jack's crap over the years might not want to tell the Jack O'Neill he knew that he loved him.

He'd had a few reservations about telling the Daniel who had shut him out so completely after Sha're's death, not to mention the Daniel who had thrown the hissy fit to end all hissy fits after that business with the rogue SGC unit, that he was his whole damned world as well.

You couldn't know someone as well as they knew each other and not have some baggage to carry.

He knew he wasn't much better than Daniel on that subject. He'd pushed when they were both Urgo-influenced to get Daniel to admit he loved him, and he hadn't. Even when he'd gone out on a limb and told Daniel how he felt about him, Daniel hadn't said those three little words. David had. David had whispered them in his ear as 'John' was thrusting into him with such tender passion in that Tok'ra chamber. But then he'd never left David in a padded cell; or told him to shut up in front of a bunch of strangers. He'd been a hero to David. He might even have been a hero to Daniel once too. About a lifetime ago. But he'd very quickly just become 'Jack'. And although it would have been nice to hear it, he wasn't going to hold his breath. Daniel would tell him when he was ready.

And he really did have to piss now or his bladder was going to explode. He bent his head and dropped a kiss in Daniel's hair. "Sorry, Danny." Daniel stirred a little and another gust of warm air tantalized Jack's nipple. His groin twitched again.

"Don't get me hard when I have to piss." Jack tried to move out from underneath him but Daniel tightened his grip, trying to burrow back into his warmth.

Jack couldn't help grinning despite the protests from his bladder. He kissed him again. "I'll be right back, I swear." He gently unhooked Daniel's fingers from his bruised ribs and wriggled out from underneath him, supporting Daniel's head so he could slide his dead arm out, then lowering it gently back onto the pillow. The duvet had slipped down as he moved and he could see Daniel's back; the broad shoulders and enticing knots of his spine. There were a lot bruises there; some of the deeper ones were still red-mauve but most of them were a blue and yellow color now. He knew there were eleven of them because he'd kissed them all a few hours before. Apparently he had sixteen bruises, which Daniel had also kissed very thoroughly. Daniel had also kissed his ribs, shoulders, neck, chest, abdomen, arms, legs, and the sensitive skin on the inside of his thighs, before spending a lot of time nuzzling, licking and sucking in his groin area. Jack wondered if the neighbors had heard him moaning Daniel's name over and over. He had a feeling they'd probably guessed he and Daniel weren't just playing chess this time.

Realizing that train of thought was going to lead to problems, Jack hurried to the bathroom before pissing became a physical impossibility.

"Jack...?"

He heard the drowsy murmur as he switched off the bathroom light.

"Jack...?" There was a hint of a panic there.

He sped across the room and climbed back into bed. "I'm here."

Daniel was still mostly asleep but he burrowed back in against Jack's body at once, sliding his left leg back between Jack's, wrapping his left arm around his body and putting his head back down on Jack's chest with a little huff of exasperation at having been disturbed, then rubbed his face against his chest hair in contentment before settling back down. He reminded Jack of a toddler whose teddy bear had slipped through the rails of his cot then been given back to him. Jack bent down and nuzzled gently behind Daniel's ear, whispering, "Miss me?"

"Yes..." It was a very muffled response. "Don't do that again...thought...all a dream...back home..."

Jack wondered about waking Daniel up so they could do some more nice things to each other's pleasure points but decided with a sigh that John definitely wouldn't have approved. John would have wanted the boy to get a good night's sleep. He supposed he ought to at least make an effort to try and live up to John's example. For a few weeks anyway.

"Although I wouldn't have given you that hand-job," he added aloud. "Not without asking you first."

"Shut up, Jack," Daniel murmured into his chest. "Trying to sleep."

Jack wondered if Daniel was asleep enough for him to say what he wanted to without it being held against him or preferably remembered. He kissed the top of his head, savoring those silky strands against his mouth, then said very quietly, "Love you, Daniel."

"Love you too, Jack." Daniel shifted against him, still trying to get comfortable. "Now shut up and let me go to sleep."

Jack put his hands behind his head and stared up at his ceiling with a grin threatening to split his face in two. Perhaps this ceiling needed repainting and perhaps that was a crack over there just starting in the corner, but it had no mirrors on it, and Daniel loved him. He might deny it in the morning especially if he didn't get his coffee - and Jack had just remembered he'd forgotten to buy the brand Daniel liked so that was sure to get a loud mention - but he'd said it and Jack had heard him.

That was one memory he didn't think anyone was ever going to be able to erase.

The End