LUMINESCENCE

by: sharilyn

EMAIL: sharilyn

I can't believe this is happening, Daniel thought dazedly; where my luck's concerned, it's probably just par for the course. But why NOW, why like this?!

"You have your orders, people."

General George Hammond's sober tones rang out over the p.a. system into the gateroom below, and a dozen helmeted heads looked up at the huge glass window Daniel and the General now stood behind. A few of those heads nodded grimly, and with weapons bristling, the dozen heavily armed soldiers turned almost as one to face the stargate as it began its familiar cycle. Nine pairs of eyes watched as the event horizon erupted in a whoosh of watery blue and then settled into readiness for those who would momentarily step through its waiting iris.

But three heads didn't bother to watch the gate; three steadfast pairs of eyes gave their attention instead to the forlorn figure of SG-1's archaeologist up in the control room as they sent him a silent, concerted message of strength and reassurance. Their gazes telegraphed to him their understanding of his disappointment, sent him looks of mild regret at the necessity of their being separated from him now. But in all three cases the regret was mixed with thankfulness that he would not be coming with them; their glances were muted with a sense of relief that--of them all--Daniel at least would stay safe.

Teal'c stood impassively on the ramp, staff weapon in hand as his dark eyes glinted a respectful farewell to the upset linguist; Samantha Carter looked impossibly fragile underneath all the weaponry she carried on her lithe frame, but her blue eyes were alert and steady and briskly professional as she loosened up just enough to send Daniel a tiny, rueful wave, along with a fleeting smile.

Daniel's glance slid over the both of them, briefly and sincerely acknowledging his team mates--his friends--with a small, serious nod. But then his eyes were drawn irresistibly to Jack O'Neill's lean form, kitted out now in full preparation for battle; and as Jack stood on the ramp beside Teal'c, his brown eyes hard and ready, he lifted those warrior's eyes to Daniel's dejected figure with an intensity that seized the breath from Daniel's lungs.

Don't go, Jack! the younger man wanted to shout out; he wanted to bang his fists on the glass, wanted to rush down the stairs and into the gate room and drag Jack out of there, take him away from this place and the damnable way fate seemed to keep conspiring against them. But all Daniel could do was stand miserably beside General Hammond, arms crossed defensively over his chest as his gaze stayed locked on Jack's in grim, silent desperation.

Jack couldn't--wouldn't--take his eyes from Daniel's; the insouciant stance of his body as he waited on the ramp revealed that he was fully aware of the others all around him in the gate room but was indifferent to their presence. His attention was focused instead--with exclusive and single-minded purpose--on the wall of windows above him and on the person standing behind the largest, central pane of bulletproof glass.

That person returned O'Neill's intent scrutiny, his own body language tense and unhappy; and as both men's gazes locked and melded in mute communication, Daniel found himself absently noting how much a picture of impellent resolve Jack made in his camouflage uniform. With an inward sigh that was half-wonder, half-dread, Daniel's hopelessly agitated mind filed away for future reference the image--the observation--of just how naturally his battle-scarred friend filled the role of the experienced, world-weary veteran.

Jack stood there--the quintessential soldier--feet firmly planted on the sloping metal ramp, his hands lightly cradling his P-90 against his chest in a gesture of familiar ease. But the stare he leveled at Daniel Jackson was anything but relaxed, his expression silently watchful and compelling. His eyes were dark--almost frighteningly so--with the intensity of the feelings he was so ruthlessly suppressing, and his jaw clenched aggressively with the force of biting back the message his soul longed to transmit across the space between Daniel and himself.

I know, Daniel returned silently; his own fierce gaze contained a corresponding darkness, his expression wavering between helpless anger and resigned acceptance as he briefly pressed his forehead against the chill of the glass separating him from his team mates, from Jack. I know. You've got no choice, you have to go, SG-5 needs reinforcements and rescue...But dammit, that doesn't make it any easier, doesn't make this fair. This shouldn't be happening, this wasn't part of the plans we made...

Wait for me, Jack's eyes told him commandingly, their brown depths backlit by shades of wistfulness, of frustrated regret. I'm coming back, dammit, don't think I'm not; we're not done yet, this isn't over between us. All of this and more Daniel read plainly in Jack's unwavering regard, and he wanted to nod his understanding, to give Jack some sign that he'd received the other man's silent, deeply personal communication. But his body remained stiff and frozen behind the protective glass barrier, his fingers digging into his own arms as he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to hold in his emotions. He knew that Jack was waiting for his response, searching Daniel's face for a hint, a trace, of acknowledgement and acceptance; but the younger man was afraid to move, afraid to blink, for fear he'd erupt into an embarrassing outward display of the inner turmoil churning in his gut.

He's going to be fine, he's coming back, Daniel argued with himself; they're ALL coming back. Just another rescue mission, another day at the office; what are a few more clueless Jaffa, when arrayed against the fighting skills of our people? Hell, Jack O'Neill was fully capable of taking out a whole squadron of the poor, ignorant bastards all on his own; with Teal'c and Sam and nine others of the SGC's finest soldiers on the job, as well, it was foolish even to worry.

Or so Daniel tried to convince himself now as he was held captive by Jack's compelling gaze. Everything was going to come out fine; SG-5 would be rescued, and Janet would have a field day lording it over the influx of patients she would undoubtedly be housing for the next little while. And dammit, Jack wouldn't be one of them. Neither would Teal'c or Sam; they knew their business, all would go smoothly...

Or not, an ugly little voice taunted somewhere deep in Daniel's head; or not. But beyond that dire possibility he would not--could not--go. So much more was at stake here now than the mere physical danger this emergency mission posed to his friends; and as Jack frowned slightly down in the gate room, shifting his feet in an abortive move toward Daniel--toward getting an answer to his wordless injunction--Daniel forced himself to swallow his misgivings and lifted one hand to press it against the glass, fingers spread across its chill surface as his level blue gaze drew Jack in, held him in a timeless span of joining and acquiescence.

I AM waiting, his expression said; I'm here. Just be damned sure you watch your back, your front, and everything else. For the briefest second Daniel was swept into the almost painfully vivid recall of the feel of his body pressed so tightly, so insistently, against Jack's, his mouth plundering the heated, welcoming hunger of the other man's; a helpless frisson of despair and dark desire seared through his blood, his heart, and the archaeologist bit back a low moan as Jack's eyes burned through him from across the crowded gate room.

"Good luck and godspeed, people," Hammond murmured suddenly at Daniel's right side, and in that same instant Jack's intense expression was transformed by a slight, grave smile that took its time filtering up from the Colonel's compressed lips to his quietly assessing eyes. At the sight of that smile, at the hint of rueful gentleness leaching through the older man's 'hardened soldier' exterior, Daniel was overcome by the sudden, almost unbearable desire to run his hands through Jack's hair, to sift each salt-and-pepper strand through his questing fingers till he'd memorized the exact texture and consistency of every hair on the older man's head. God, just give me the chance to do that, to have...to have a life, to have TIME with the man standing just beyond the glass and yet so far out of his reach.

"Heads up, troops!" Colonel Harper bellowed from the top of the ramp, his voice clipped and somewhat curt with anticipation. As the three rescue teams moved as one to divide up and form ordered groups of two abreast in preparation for entering the wormhole, Jack sent Daniel one last look of silent promise, his brown eyes issuing a message both of farewell and of reassurance. Daniel shaped his lips into the barest semblance of a smile, his own eyes somber behind the sheltering frames of his glasses; and that was all, no time for anything more.

Jack lifted one hand, sketched both Daniel and the General an abrupt, ironic salute; then he turned his back on the control room and mounted the ramp alongside Carter, one hand going up absently to adjust the strap of the Major's P-90 on her shoulder. Sam sent him a wry look of thanks, turned to reassure herself that Teal'c was just behind them, his bald head gleaming under the lights; and then the rescue party was gone, swallowed up two by two into the deceptively serene maw of the stargate. Their passing left a hollow silence behind, a long moment of strained apprehension, of unvoiced hopes for a positive outcome. And in the midst of the quiet looks and comments his coworkers exchanged all around him, Daniel Jackson stood mute and isolated, his body present but his mind--his soul--gone through the gate with the others of his team. With Jack.

"I don't know why you wouldn't let me go."

Daniel's voice was low, angry; he sat at the conference table across from General Hammond, cupping restless hands around a now-cold cup of base coffee as the words slid without volition from his pursed lips.

"You do know why, Dr. Jackson."

Hammond's tone was wearily patient, edged the tiniest bit with exasperation; his own, freshly-poured mug of bitter brew steamed forgotten on the table before him as he leveled an assessing blue stare on the slumped form of SG-1's unhappy archaeologist.

"You're a civilian consultant, Daniel; well-trained and adept in military matters, it's true, but still basically a noncom. It is NOT your place to be sent in on the front lines of an admittedly dangerous S&R mission--you know that. If and when a situation should arise requiring additional troops...well, let's just wait and see. If we need you then, we'll definitely let you know. But for now all we can do--"

"Is wait," Daniel finished acridly, his expression mulish as he raised piercing blue eyes to the General's careworn face. "I know the drill; just be a good boy, Dr. Jackson, just stay out of the way and keep quiet and find something to keep you busy while your friends are out there without you, fighting for their lives and others' and maybe dying..."

"They'll fight better, knowing you're safe here, that you ARE waiting for them to return," Hammond murmured softly, his gaze holding Daniel's. "I know you don't like that, that you chafe at the...protectiveness...the rest of SG-1 sometimes displays towards you. Your frustration is understandable, and believe me, I've talked to Colonel O'Neill about it before."

Here the General heaved a sigh and took a distracted sip of his coffee, brow furrowing as he framed his next words. "Let me explain something to you, Dr. Jackson. As commander of this base, I won't have any teams out there with members that feel they have to carry the load for any one particular member of the team. Early on, when you first joined this facility, I had...concerns...about that. And so I watched; I spoke at length with Jack about letting you find your own way, allowing you to make your own mistakes under safe conditions so you'd learn...and you have learned."

Hammond paused, a small but genuine smile curving his lips as his eyes warmed. "You've proven yourself, Daniel, over and over again; Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, Teal'c--they all know you don't need coddling, that you're competent. I know it, too. But with SG-1 it's also just an inarguable fact that the rest of your team still feels the need to look out for you at times, to assure themselves of your health and safety. You're their heart, Daniel, the conscience of the team; it's always been that way between all of you, and everyone can see it. I know that's not always an easy role for you to accept, to be saddled with; I know you see yourself as so much more. You think they DON'T see all the other things you are, the other things you have to offer; but they do see it. Just give them--and yourself--a chance. Give it time. Don't be in such a rush to prove you can do it all, that you're indispensable; hell, Daniel, we already know that. You don't expect the rest of your team to know all about archaeology and ancient civilizations; why would you think they expect you to know everything about everything in return?"

"Yes, sir; I see what you're saying," Daniel murmured a reply, his expression wry as he grimaced a half-smile in the General's direction. But the smile never reached his eyes, which remained impossibly cool as they slid from Hammond's resigned face to study his own restless hands silently turning his coffee cup round and round on the tabletop.

"Well, then...We're standing by for first reports,for any word; but it might be some time, Dr. Jackson. You're welcome to stay here, of course, but--"

"But I'm sure there's some dreadfully intriguing manuscript I could be translating in my very own office," Daniel finished sardonically, lurching to his feet before the hapless General could frame a rejoinder. Why the hell did we ever come back from our last mission, Daniel found himself thinking as he turned and left the conference room; we were supposed to go HOME, Jack and I, were supposed to have the chance to figure out what's going on between us, to talk this whole thing out. To talk...and more, a wistful voice whispered in his head. So much more.

The need to touch Jack, to be with him--to breathe in his scent and to view the inner spirit reflected with such dry humor from the older man's eyes--was a dull, continuous ache in Daniel's chest now as he made his way to his office. His troubled gaze unseeing, he brushed past the hurrying forms of busy, stressed-out base personnel as though they weren't there, his own preoccupied expression erecting an inviolable shield against outside interference or intrusion. No one spoke to him on the journey from the conference room to his office; and once he'd closed the door behind him and was slumped bonelessly against its supportive bulk, the distressed linguist closed his eyes tight and pressed both fists against his chest, willing the heavy, worried pounding of his heart to slow, to settle. Willing Jack and Sam and Teal'c to come back safely, willing Jack's return into the desperate circle of Daniel's own empty, aching arms.

"Incoming wounded!"

The dreaded cry rang out through the gate room, the words branding themselves with fearsome heat into the marrow of Daniel's bones; as he stood jittering agitatedly from foot to foot at the base of the ramp, his eyes feverishly trying to sort out the tangled hodgepodge of rumpled uniforms tumbling haphazardly through the gate's open iris, one word kept repeating over and over in the frantic warrens of his mind: nonononononno...

Not Jack, don't let it be Jack, he uttered the nebulous prayer to the ether as he watched Sam roll down the ramp, one hand clamped protectively against her midsection as she sat up and peered rather dazedly around her at all the commotion; her eyes lit on Daniel, and he squirmed his way past a horde of frenetic medical personnel to reach her side.

"Okay?" he breathed, reaching a hand to lift her carefully to her feet; for a brief moment his worry for Jack was submerged beneath his need to assure himself that Sam wasn't badly hurt, and the wry grimace she bestowed on him as he gently inspected her swollen hand allayed his fears.

"I'm fine, Daniel," she murmured, reaching with her uninjured hand to pat her team mate's shoulder. "Just sprained, I think; that's what I get for trying to toss a two hundred pound Jaffa single-handedly. So to speak."

"And the others?" Daniel asked, his tone pensive; his gaze had already left Sam's exhausted form and was scanning the figures still emerging through the iris. It was a motley assortment, made up of both the rescued and the rescuers, but he didn't see Jack or Teal'c.

"They were behind me, right behind me, Daniel," Sam muttered at his side, her own voice dropping with sudden apprehension. "They'll be coming through any second now, I'm sure--"

And she was right; at that instant Teal'c's muscled form barreled through the gate, narrowly missing two of Fraiser's nurses where they knelt over one of SG-5's unconscious team members on the ramp. Daniel's heart stopped in his chest, then jumped once, erratically, at the sight of Jack O'Neill's blood-soaked form clinging with grim, fading tenacity to Teal'c's indomitable strength; for a nanosecond--an eternity--Daniel couldn't move, couldn't breathe. And in that eyeblink of time Jack raised his drooping head and pinned Daniel's stunned eyes with his own determined, pain-glazed stare.

"Dr. Fraiser! Colonel O'Neill has been shot!" Teal'c's commanding voice rose above the noise and organized chaos already filling the gate room full to bursting; and as Daniel surged forward, his pulse pounding sickly in his ears, his dazed eyes took in the sight of Janet Fraiser pushing her way to Teal'c's side.

"Careful, careful! Ease him down, don't jar him..." As Teal'c slid his commander's wounded body carefully but speedily to the hard metal surface of the ramp--his large hands cradling Jack's head as he guided the steadily weakening man to the ground--Jack's eyes never left Daniel's white, anguished face. His own features were absolutely gray, all color leached from his skin as he bit back a low, agonized growl of pain; his fingers scrabbled fitfully at the obstacle Janet's worried body presented to him in his attempts to see around her, to see Daniel. Gently but firmly Janet captured his blood-smeared hands between her own gloved fingers and pushed them away, speaking to Jack in a low,soothing murmur as her brown eyes zeroed in on the bullet's entry point high on the left side of the Colonel's chest.

Daniel...

The word hovered on Jack's lips, shaped itself with soundless effort and was delivered with unerring aim to the crazed man shoving his way past the ambulatory wounded to get to him, to drop to his knees in a growing pool of Jack's blood on the ramp.

"Jack!" Daniel's dismayed cry was loud, too loud, inside his own head; but as it emerged on the trauma-laden air it seemed little more than a gasping moan, a whimper of despair. Somehow Daniel found himself on his knees next to Janet, his hands reaching blindly for Jack's as Teal'c's worry-darkened eyes met his from across their friend's body.

"Hang in there, Colonel, you're doing fine," Janet was murmuring, her hands busy at the task of saving this man's life, of keeping the rest of his rich, red blood from spilling all over the gate room floor. "Talk to him, Daniel, keep him with us."

"Danny..." Jack's voice was a whisper, his breath hitching in his chest as he forced his dulled eyes to remain open, to stay focused on Daniel's colorless face. "Guess I...zigged...when shoulda...zagged..."

"One of them had a revolver," Teal'c intoned grimly, his dark features tightening in anger. "Taken from one of SG-5's people when they were first captured, I imagine. The Jaffa who took it was mortally wounded but obviously not quite gone. He lay still, played dead; and then, as we were making out retreat..."

"He nailed me," Jack wheezed, disgust bubbling up from his throat along with a dark trail of blood. "Stupid, greenhorn, son-of-a-bitching mistake for me to make, not watching, letting my guard down..."

"I was unprepared, as well, O'Neill," Teal'c allowed mournfully, reaching out to lay a gentle, calming hand on Jack's upper arm. "There was much confusion, much urgency to get the others to safety..."

"Hey...just where did that bullet get you, anyway?" Daniel cut in; he heard his voice as if from a great distance and was surprised by its control, was both intrigued and appalled by the cavalier nature of the words. But there was a shakiness in his voice behind the superficial lightness, a deep well of fear rising up behind his outwardly controlled tone; he wanted to lose it completely, to rage and curse and close his eyes against the blood and against Jack's suffering, wanted to just make it all go away...

And he saw in Jack's eyes that the other man knew, knew and understood and wanted, even in the midst of his own horrible distress, to comfort Daniel somehow. Trembling, blood-caked fingers held onto Daniel's, squeezed and stroked and communicated a silent message of chagrin, of apology: sorry, Daniel. Sorry for getting the living shit shot out of me.

"The bleeding's uncontrolled, he's going to need surgery," Daniel heard Janet saying to her people; the words rang hollowly in his head as he held Jack's limp hand between his and watched without comprehension the myriad procedures Janet was briskly carrying out on Jack's supine form. Iv's, oxygen, pressure bandages, blood pressure...it was all a blur, and through it all Jack kept bleeding, kept oozing his life's vital juices in a sickeningly familiar pattern all over the ramp. Reenacting in vivid technicolor a scene Daniel had only too recently lived over and over within the shattered portals of a mind lost in a chemically-induced morass of horrifying delusions.

But this was no delusion; today there would be no blessed return to consciousness and safety and normality. This WAS consciousness, this WAS reality; Jack's blood constituted a startlingly vibrant splotch of color against the dull gray metal of the ramp as copious quantities of it trickled down through the mesh to splash on the concrete floor below. Jack's eyes were losing focus, glazing over with shock and the absence of the red stuff draining away beneath him; Daniel smelled it everywhere, the coppery tang of violence and death, of Jack's life seeping out of him. Desperately he rubbed Jack's lax hand between his own, called the other's name and swallowed back a hoarse cry of sheer despair as Jack's eyes slid all the way shut, his head lolling limply to one side.

"Dammit, Jack!" The words were wrenched from Daniel's lips in a burst of anguished sound, his desperation reaching deep, deep into the last coherent fibers of thought, of awareness, that Jack O'Neill possessed. With all that was left of his depleted strength, Jack forced his eyelids to lift, struggled to center his fuzzy gaze on the pale, frantic oval of Daniel's face somewhere off to his right.

"Ahh...Daniel," he sighed out sorrowfully, regretfully, a flicker of terrible tenderness ghosting across the dying light of his eyes. "Danny, please...don't. Be. Mad. Not...too much. Daniel..."

"Let's go, go, go!"

Janet was hollering rapid-fire orders, and then hands were lifting Jack's horrifyingly limp body onto a stretcher; Daniel felt him go, felt the slide of those blood-stained fingers wrenched from his hold as his friend's dying body was hustled out the doors of the gate room. Daniel knelt on the ramp, his knees wet and sticky with Jack's blood, his gaze locked with dull fascination on the rusty smears streaking both of his palms. He could hear both Sam's and Teal'c's voices above him, hear them adjure him, beg him, to get up now, to come with them; but his body had turned to stone, had gone unfeeling and cold, so cold. He barely noticed when the somber Jaffa carefully maneuvered him to his feet, was only peripherally aware of Sam's good arm wrapping around his hunched shoulders as she and Teal'c steered him out of the gate room and down to the infirmary.

I felt him go, Daniel thought dazedly as they walked, as his eyes watched his feet lift up and down, mechanically. I felt him go; how do they think they can bring him back?

"Are you well, Daniel Jackson?"

Teal'c's bass rumble sounded quietly in the early morning dimness, rousing Daniel from uneasy dreams in which he was dressed all in black and was chasing his own elusive shadow down endless corridors, trapped inside of some huge, medieval-style fortress.

Blinking owlishly, Daniel raised his head from the disaster that was his desk top and dug both fists into his eyes; he had obviously dozed off in the middle of some late-night translating again, and he had the muscle aches and foul-tasting mouth to prove that it hadn't exactly been a restful sleep.

"Oh...um...Teal'c. Good morning...is it morning? What time is it?" Daniel murmured indistinctly, fumbling around on his cluttered desk in a bleary search for his glasses. As his sleep-fogged brain tried to focus on the task at hand, he became aware of a large, blurry figure moving to stand beside him. He jerked slightly in startled reaction as he felt Teal'c's large hand descend onto his head, but then the Jaffa very gently removed Daniel's glasses from their tangled resting place in the linguist's sleep-spiked hair and silently handed them to his bemused friend.

"Ah...thanks. I...uh...thanks, Teal'c." Chagrined, Daniel settled the glasses on his nose and directed a quick, sidelong look of apology in his team mate's direction. "You didn't happen to find my coffee mug up there while you were looking around, did you?"

"How long has it been since you partook of anything other than coffee, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c chastised, one brow raised ominously. Daniel screwed up his eyes and grimaced distractedly, the faint imprint of the edge of a ruler etching tiny millimeter lines along his jaw.

"I...um...I had a sandwich, Teal'c. Yesterday. I think."

"Major Carter delivered a tuna sandwich on rye to your office yesterday, that is true," Teal'c replied, his dark eyes boring into Daniel's in quiet reprimand.

"See? There you go, then. I ate yesterday; perfectly acceptable," Daniel blustered wearily, just wishing his large and rather imposing friend would go away now.

"And how was it, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c continued relentlessly, looming over Daniel like some sort of vengeful dietary gestapo officer.

"It was, it was...er, good. Yes, I'm sure I enjoyed it tremendously. Would you like for Sam to order you one, too?" Daniel muttered peevishly, wiggling his toes under the desk in a surreptitious attempt to discover if he still had his shoes on.

"So you enjoyed the sandwich." With all the drama of a keen-eyed prosecuting attorney hot on the trail of a conviction, Teal'c moved around to the front of Daniel's desk and extended a finger to disdainfully brush aside a crumpled stack of papers littering one corner of the desk; resting underneath the stack was a paper plate, and in its center sat the dejected, rather maladorous corpse of a tuna sandwich on rye, untouched by even so much as a single toothmark.

"Oh. I wondered what that smell was," Daniel murmured faintly, wrinkling his nose as he pushed his chair back and glared absently down at his feet. He was sporting one slightly dirty sock on his left foot; the right was as naked as the day he was born. "I can't remember when I last showered, either, so I thought it was just me..."

"You must come with me now, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c ordered with that peculiar brand of Jaffa finality that would brook no protest. Daniel sighed resignedly, aware that unless he was in possession of tactical nukes, there wasn't much he could do to dissuade his determined friend from whatever course of action he had planned.

"Oh. Okay. Just...where are we going, Teal'c? Is it far, cause I really need to get the rest of this translation done before SG-2 returns to GX819..."

"The translation will wait, Daniel Jackson. You are going to take a hot shower, dress in fresh clothing, eat a decent and healthy breakfast--no coffee--and then you are going to the infirmary," Teal'c decreed, a glint of challenge rising in his dark eyes at Daniel's small grunt of protest.

"I'm fine; I don't need to go to the infirmary," Daniel groused, bending over in his chair in a fruitless search for his missing sock and shoes.

"I must disagree, Daniel Jackson; the infirmary is exactly where you most need to be now. And I believe you know why." Teal'c's voice was implacable, even severe; but beneath his brusque tone lurked a degree of compassion that set Daniel's teeth on edge because he didn't want to know about it, didn't want to feel it or deal with it. He was sick of everyone dictating to him what he should be feeling, oozing their own messy, unsolicited emotions all over him when all he wanted to do was his damned job, thank you very much.

"He's going home soon, isn't that right?" he said now, his voice tight as he avoided Teal'c's astute gaze. "That means he's fine, that he's doing well. So he doesn't need me in there providing some form of tedious, obligatory visitation when probably all he wants is some peace and quiet. No, it's better if I stay here and get everything done that needs doing; then maybe I'll have time freed up to go visit Jack at home. I WILL grab that shower, though; thanks for the...uh...suggestion."

"I will accompany you to the locker room and wait outside until you have finished showering," Teal'c continued as though Daniel hadn't spoken. "I will then walk with you to the cafeteria for a hot breakfast and some orange juice, after which we will adjourn to the infirmary. Colonel O'Neill has been asking for you since dawn."

"Where's Sam? Do you have her lurking outside with a zat gun, ready to overpower me if I refuse to go with you peacefully?" Daniel sighed, running a hand over his face. "Or did you draw straws to see who'd get this job?"

"Major Carter is to meet us outside the locker room; she took it upon herself to drive to your apartment last night and procure clean garments for you to change into after you have showered this morn," Teal'c intoned. As Daniel scowled blackly up at him, the imposing alien raised one brow and added succinctly: "She also fed your fish."

"I'll be sure to send her a thank you card," Daniel snarked, groaning slightly in the throes of a vicious lower back twinge as he reached far under his desk and retrieved one boot.

"Your dismal attitude does not offend me," Teal'c replied imperturbably, his dark eyes calm as he observed Daniel's uncoordinated struggle to get his boot on. "I am impervious to your abysmally rude behavior, as well, as I am fully aware that it springs from your own deep inner pain."

"Jesus, Teal'c! Have you been watching Oprah again?" Daniel snarled tiredly, wrestling his other boot out of his half-opened bottom drawer. Glancing around in rising frustration at the stubborn refusal of his missing sock to make an appearance, he shrugged negligently and merely jammed the other boot onto his naked foot.

"I believe Dr. Fraiser has sufficient aspirin for your obvious headache, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c droned on relentlessly, standing at ease with both hands behind his back. "It will be but a simple matter to procure a sufficient quantity to alleviate the worst of your symptoms. And I know that O'Neill will be most pleased to see you."

"Yeah, I can regale him with the fascinating conundrum of just where the hell my sock vanished to," Daniel muttered harshly; Teal'c merely gazed at the linguist without speaking, and after a moment Daniel sighed and threw up both hands.

"Okay, okay," he surrendered, slamming the bottom drawer of his desk closed and rising rather shakily to his feet. "I'm yours. Lead on to the showers with your bad self." His voice reeked with sarcasm, and the glare he directed Teal'c's way was simply scathing; but the other man merely gestured toward the open office door in an 'after you' gesture and then stood respectfully to one side. In the Jaffa's dark eyes was the calm patience of the ages, and wearily Daniel decided that it just wasn't worth the trouble to argue. So, with one final black scowl around the increasingly malodorous confines of his office, Daniel stumbled out ahead of his friend into the corridor beyond, muttering dire threats against all of mankind unless a quantity of very hot, very fresh coffee was procured in the shortest possible amount of time.

"You will have orange juice," Teal'c stated pleasantly but firmly as he walked in step just behind his irate team mate; and as the two progressed toward the showers, more than a few of the base's unwary personnel received an astounded, eye-opening lesson in the numerous colorful and definitely out-of-character invectives spewing from the mouth of everyone's favorite linguist.

Sam was hurt; Sam was angry. Sam loved him, and it was because of that love that she watched him now with such wounded, bewildered eyes. And Daniel felt sorry for that, regretted in a tired sort of way putting his kind-hearted friend through such rigors of emotion. But he couldn't give her what she wanted, couldn't erase the hopeful question so clear on her face with some flip, meaningless answer that would make her blue eyes shine again but at the expense of Daniel's own soul.

So he said nothing at all, just sat in the cafeteria methodically shoveling in scrambled eggs and toast and downing a glass of skim milk without tasting it. With one finger he pushed away the brimming glass of orange juice Teal'c had set by his plate, and as the silent Jaffa sent him a brief look of displeasure, Daniel turned to Sam and gave her his most hangdog expression.

"I would KILL for some coffee," he wheedled in a low voice; and with a sigh that was partly grudging and partly solicitous, Sam Carter rose from her chair and headed for the coffee urn in the corner.

"You are indeed a treacherous man, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c scolded dourly from across the table, a forkful of his omelette drizzling melted cheese in a stringy trail across his plate. "I am uncertain whether I should applaud or lament your swift acquisition of the dubious skills of duplicity and manipulation."

"I just want some coffee, Teal'c," Daniel sighed, crumpling up his napkin and tossing it onto his plate. "And for Sam to stop staring at me like that. Dammit, it isn't my job to be morale officer for this team. I'm tired, and I still have work to do, and I DON'T owe you or Sam any explanations. OR Jack, for that matter. He's going home, I'm truly glad about that, and when he's fully recovered it will be back to business as usual around here. End of story, can I go now?"

"Not without your coffee," Sam spoke from behind him, and Daniel flinched slightly to one side as the Major leaned in and set the steaming cup beside his plate with more force than was necessary. Reluctantly he turned to look up into her eyes and wished he hadn't when the cool, wounded expression deep in their cornflower depths cut into his soul.

"I have work to do, too, so I guess I'll be moving along," Sam stated flatly, and Daniel dipped his head toward his chest in stoic silence as Sam paused significantly, giving him one last chance to talk, to unload onto her willing shoulders all the vitriol and anger and residual fear buried so deeply inside his withdrawn frame. When Daniel held his silence, blue eyes gazing resolute amd unseeing through the faint curl of steam drifting up from his coffee, Sam cast one anguished, bitter look Teal'c's way and whipped out of the cafeteria, her vehement passing raising more than a few eyebrows.

"I must meet soon with a group of cadets in order to insruct them in defensive hand-to-hand tactics," Teal'c offered smoothly, spearing the last bit of omelette on his plate and swallowing it in one bite. If he was at all upset by Daniel's callous treatment of Samantha Carter, he didn't let it show. "And I believe you have certain...obligations...as well, Daniel Jackson."

"Let's just get it over with," Daniel bit off the words as if they tasted bad, and with repressed violence he snatched up his tray and stormed over to the nearest trash receptacle, his shoulders rigid with anger. Behind his back Teal'c eyed his troubled young friend with private dismay, his intelligent eyes dark with grief and his own brand of frustrated anger; but as Daniel dumped the contents of the tray and turned back to face the Jaffa, Teal'c's expression was as remote and inscrutable as before.

"Indeed, Daniel Jackson," he intoned coolly; "I too am more than ready to 'get it over with.'" And as Daniel gave him a hard nod and stalked out through the double doors into the corridor outside, Teal'c smothered a heavy sigh and schooled his features into blankness as he followed right behind.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in; hullo, boys."

Jack O'Neill's voice was surprisingly cheerful, his expression wry as he looked up to see the two familiar figures hovering in the doorway to his own private infirmary room. "So, what's shaking, guys? Don't tell me you have nothing better to do this fine morn than shoot the breeze with an old Colonel?"

"Greetings, O'Neill; Daniel Jackson and I have decided to enjoy a small break in the course of our work this morning and thought we might check in on you. Are we intruding?" Teal'c asked with grave courtesy. His eyes gleamed warmly as they assessed the progress of the Colonel's recovery and obviously found matters to be satisfactory; and in return Jack's gaze was alive with quiet affection.

"Yeah, but come in, anyway," he scoffed, reaching somewhat stiffly toward the single chair sitting empty next to his bed. "Sorry, you'll have to fight for the chair. Unless one of you feels like snuggling in with me, that is." The eyes he lifted to Daniel at this last were clear and guileless, but any hidden message in Jack's remark went unnoticed as the subdued archaeologist standing in the doorway merely scuffed one toe across the floor tile and made an abrupt hand gesture in Teal'c's direction.

"Go ahead, Teal'c; why don't you sit with Jack for awhile? I can always come back later," Daniel murmured. He was already backing through the doorway when Janet Fraiser stuck her head in and beamed brightly at the three men.

"Ah, a trio of irresistible male pulchritude!" she chortled pertly, a flash of deviltry appearing in her brown eyes. "Nice to see that someone else other than my poor, beleaguered medical staff has mustered up the courage to provide some distraction to the world's worst post-op patient," she continued cheerfully.

"I would be most pleased to contribute to Colonel O'Neill's distraction, Dr. Fraiser," Teal'c spoke up now, inclining his head toward the petite doctor with solemn respect. "However, it has come to my attention that I will very shortly have an entire class of unsupervised cadets awaiting my instruction in defensive combat. It would not be seemly were I to make a tardy entrance. Discipline would be sadly lacking in my absence, I fear."

"You're probably right, Teal'c," Janet agreed, a rueful smile flitting across her face. "Just...ah...be gentle with them all, won't you? I'm really not in the mood to set any broken bones or have to evaluate any head injuries or concussions today." A slight warning tone crept in beneath the teasing lilt of her voice, and Teal'c nodded quiet agreement.

"I shall endeavor to restrain myself during this morning's session, Dr. Fraiser," he promised gravely; and with a final, carefully casual farewell to O'Neill, the silently graceful Jaffa took his leave.

"Smooth, very smooth," Daniel sighed almost admiringly in the wake of Teal'c's departure, and a frown creased his brow as he stood just inside the doorway, absently watching Janet's brisk evaluation of Jack's temp and blood pressure. "Like I didn't see THAT coming."

As Janet checked the condition of the stitches grouped just below Jack's left collarbone, Jack used the concealment of her slender body stretched momentarily across his to dart a look of frowning concern in Daniel's direction. His brown eyes rose to meet Janet Fraiser's as she gently replaced his bandage, and the expression of abject misery she saw trapped within their whiskey-gold depths pulled at her heart. But she knew Jack was determined that Daniel wouldn't see--that he wouldn't know--just how badly the younger man's stubborn absence had hurt the Colonel during these past few days of the older man's slow, painful physical recovery.

"Everything looks fine, sir," she said now, pausing to give Jack's right hand a surreptitious pat of empathy and encouragement. "I guess I'm free now to go look for someone who's REALLY in need of a doctor. And don't fret, Daniel; I'll be sure to send one of the nurses in with some aspirin for you. Don't leave before you've taken something for that headache."

"Why does everyone keep saying I have a headache?" Daniel growled, but his complaint went unnoticed as Janet scribbled something in Jack's chart and headed briskly for the door.

"Ten minutes, Daniel," she warned in passing. "He still needs his rest, you know."

"I won't stay long," Daniel replied, and a dull flush rose in his face at the reproachful look Jack cast his way.

"Just can't wait to make a run for it, eh, Daniel?" Jack sighed, and his tone was only mildly teasing. The aggrieved expression deep in his eyes filled Daniel with self-loathing, but the younger man made no move to approach the hospital bed and its pale, bandaged occupant.

"I was WORKING when Teal'c barged in and-and just...absconded with me; he made me shower, eat breakfast, come here..."

"The unmitigated gall of some people," Jack snorted sardonically; a small grimace of pain followed the observation, and at the sight Daniel took a few reluctant, grudgingly concerned steps forward.

"I just...I need to finish my work," he muttered awkwardly, a sullen note threading through the words. "It's for SG-2, an important translation dealing with an ancient RaVilion peace treaty that could very possibly impact current trade negotiations with--"

"Sounds fascinating," Jack interrupted, fumbling with some effort to depress a button on the small, handheld device that was safety-pinned to his mattress to keep if from slipping out of his reach. With his push of the button the head of his bed began to rise, elevating Jack's upper body until he was sitting almost upright.

"Ah...should you be doing that, Jack?" Daniel asked, noting how the shift in movement had drained an alarming amount of the color from his friend's face. "Here, let me..."

Momentarily forgetting his standoffish intentions, Daniel moved to resettle the bed's single pillow so that it was wedged comfortably behind Jack's back and neck and was positioned in just such a way as to take pressure off the wounded man's left shoulder.

"Thanks," Jack murmured somewhat breathlessly, his voice weak as he waited for the room to stop spinning around. "I'm damned sick and tired of lying here flat as a pancake, bored out of my skull. But wow, what a difference a few degrees of elevation makes, eh? Makes me feel like a man again! Next thing you know, I'll be able to go tinkle all by myself; after that, the sky's the limit, I'm telling ya."

"Well, if you overdo things this early in the game, you won't be tinkling or anything ELSE on your own for quite awhile," Daniel scolded quietly, unable to hold back a small half-smile. "REST, Jack; you need lots of rest."

"Maybe; and I'll work on that. I AM working on it, as we speak. But let's not talk about me, Daniel. Tell me, instead...what is it YOU need? Really, I want to know." All the playfulness had gone from Jack's voice, instantly and completely submerged beneath the sudden bleak intensity in the older man's eyes; and before Daniel could withdraw or pull away, Jack reached with a surprisingly strong hand to encircle Daniel's wrist with his fingers.

"I fucked up, didn't I?" Jack sighed disgustedly before Daniel had a chance to spit out some meaningless drabble and make his retreat. "Coming hot on the heels of what we went through with the hallucinations and everything, and then what happened between us on our last mission--"

"Jack," Daniel began uneasily, darting an anxious look back over his shoulder; but Jack just pulled insistently on Daniel's wrist and forced the younger man to look at him.

"It's fine, no one can hear us; no one's coming in here for the next five or ten minutes. And we WILL talk about this. NOW, Daniel. It's bad enough that you have all these...issues...with me since I got shot. With US. But you're acting like a prize asshole to Teal'c and Sam, too, and that just isn't fair. It isn't their fault, what's happening between you and me. So before we go any further, before we discuss anything else...I would just like it if you would make things...better...between you and the others. Can you do that, Daniel?" Jack's expression was sober, his eyes flashing a message that blended anger and constrained pleading. At the Colonel's troubled look Daniel's chin dropped to his chest and he blinked once, genuine regret bowing his shoulders inward.

"I can; I will." Daniel spoke softly, ruefully, a light almost of release in his eyes as he finally focused them directly on Jack's pain-lined face. "I regret my behavior toward Teal'c and Sam lately. You're right, I HAVE pretty much been an ass to them. I...I'm sorry."

A dark shadow of some nameless sorrow flickered in Daniel's blue eyes as he found himself unable to look away from Jack's intense perusal. "I'll make it up to the both of them, somehow," the younger man murmured, a grimace of shame chasing across his face as he remembered the expression in Sam's eyes earlier in the cafeteria. "There's really no excuse for the way I've treated them."

"Damned straight. Even given what's happened with all of us lately, it isn't like you, Daniel, to so coolly disregard their feelings," Jack sighed. "After I came out of surgery, I told them to back off, to give you some space...but you know how you are; give you an inch of space and you take a mile. Or something like that."

Jack's eyes crinkled in a slight grimace at his own lame humor, but Daniel remained unimpressed; a cagey frown was etching its way across the younger man's forehead again, and he gave an experimental jerk of his wrist under Jack's hand, attempting to escape the other's hold without hurting him.

"I'll make things right, Jack," he murmured somewhat impatiently, and the knowing look Jack gave him communicated quite clearly that the Colonel knew it was only Teal'c and Sam that Daniel was talking about.

"Good--that's good," Jack replied, his distracted tone communicating to Daniel that he had accepted the other man's vow at face value--a done deal--and was ready to move on. As Daniel nodded once, a flicker of hope entering his eyes at the possibility that maybe he could make a quick getaway now, Jack decided it was time to hit him with both barrels.

"You never gave me the chance to tell you how it helped me, seeing you there in the gate room when Teal'c brought me through," Jack said suddenly, his fingers restlessly circling Daniel's captured wrist. A shiver of pure sensation raced like fire from the contact point of Jack's fingertips against his skin, searing up Daniel's arm and straight into his soul; and with a small, inadvertent cry of distress, Daniel tried again to pull away.

"Where else would I have been, Jack?" he stuttered out thickly in reply, glaring down at the older man's pale, blunt fingers digging into his flesh. A pounding beat had begun in the center of his forehead, and he almost snarled as he curled the fingers of his captured hand into a fist, muscles bunching in frustration under Jack's relentless hold.

"I guess that's the question," Jack responded somberly, his eyes resting on Daniel's white, furious face with almost unbearable gentleness. "You stand there now, telling me there's no place else you would've been, nowhere else you would have WANTED to be at that moment...but you can't even look at me."

Jack sighed, his voice edged with a deep weariness. "You want to tear yourself out of my grasp so badly right now that you're about to explode," he muttered softly to Daniel. "The only reason you haven't jerked your wrist free is because...well, because even as mad at me as you are, even as-as screwed up over all this as you're so obviously feeling right now...you still don't want to hurt me. Some part of you realizes that it's taking every last ounce of strength I have to hold onto you like this, and if you pull away...where does that leave me? Can you tell me that, Daniel? Where does it leave me when you rip yourself away, when you turn your face from me one last time? I don't know what to say to keep you here, to make you look at me and talk to me like I'm a person, like I'm the same Jack O'Neill you kissed back on that damned planet, the same person you WANTED then--"

"Stop it, Jack; just stop it." Daniel's voice was so low, so fierce and shaky with rage, that the tone of it accomplished what Daniel's half-hearted physical struggles had failed to do earlier; Jack released the other man's wrist, let go of Daniel's flesh as abruptly as though it were hot metal burning his skin. Daniel stood beside his best friend's narrow hospital bed, both arms held rigidly at his sides now, and his blue gaze bored with liquid fury into Jack's equally distraught brown eyes.

"Stop telling me how I feel, acting like you even have a CLUE what's in my heart!" Daniel bit out ferociously. "You have the nerve to lie there and play your trump card--your 'Let's all pity poor, wounded Jack' card--expecting me to fall all over you and beg your forgiveness because I...because I haven't wanted to see you. To talk to you."

Daniel's hands lifted, clenched into fists, shook slightly as he clutched them against his chest. "You asked me just now where it would leave you if I turned my face away, if I rejected...whatever this is that's been building between us," he continued angrily. "But you never asked where it left ME that day, kneeling next to you on that ramp and feeling you dying, watching your blood run out...how it felt remembering that I'd seen it all before, agonized over it before, whether it was real or not...Dammit, it was real to ME! All those times in my head, even in delirium, it was pretty fucking REAL, Jack. And I'm an adult, I should be able to handle all this, stand on my own feet, make my own decisions about what I feel, what I want, what I NEED..."

Daniel seemed unaware of the hot tears gathering in his eyes, was unmindful of the expression of sheer, unadulterated anguish distorting the lines of his face; he was lost on an endless ocean, tossed about by monstrous waves and pulled repeatedly under, his soul dragged relentlessly down beneath the onslaught of the raw emotions pouring through him. After all this time--after all the damned missions and battles and prevailing over and over again in the face of almost insurmountable odds--why did it have to be like this NOW? Why did his growing feelings for Jack have to hit him so hard, so deep; why was he pulling away and shaking with rage when all he REALLY wanted to do was wrap himself around Jack like a clinging vine and never, ever let go?

"Daniel...come here."

Jack's voice was very quiet, his tone measured; anyone not looking closely--anyone not staring straight into the depths of his exhausted eyes--might have misread the older man's apparent calmness as mere, weary forbearance. But one clear look--one brief second glance into Jack O'Neill's pallid, pain-creased face--was enough to reveal the truth.

Daniel, his spirit finely attuned through long familiarity to every nuance of the older man's speech, found his gaze flying to Jack's in stunned recognition now of the deep affection he heard in the other's voice; all his rage, his inner turmoil, the past few days of abject, self-inflicted misery...it all boiled up and over and found release in the one hesitant, fumbling step the linguist took toward Jack's bed. The truth in Jack's eyes--the silent epiphany he offered up now in the form of one outstretched hand--drew Daniel in like a moth to a flame, tantalizing him with the promise of the heat and light he suspected would flare between them; but terrifying him, too, as some part of his mind recalled just what happened to those hapless moths who flew too near a burning flame.

"Daniel..." There was the slightest wobble in Jack's voice now as he repeated his invitation, his plea-within-a-command; Daniel could see a faint tremor beginning in the hand Jack held out toward him, and the sight of the wretched sadness gleaming like dark oil in the Colonel's gaze shattered the last, brittle shards of protective distance Daniel had built around himself since Jack was wounded.

Daniel gazed down at the hand Jack offered so patiently, gazed at each strong, blunt-nailed finger with something akin to wonder; almost without volition his own fingers uncurled against his chest, his hands unclenching, opening, one tentative hand reaching slowly toward Jack's.

"Here; sit here, by me," Jack murmured hoarsely, and as Daniel's fingers closed carefully around his, the older man breathed a heavy sigh, his eyes going impossibly dark with the emotions raging behind the calm facade he was struggling to retain.

"I can't sit there, Janet wouldn't like it," Daniel mumbled blankly, but he didn't resist the inexorable pull of Jack's hand on his; as Jack drew him right up to the side of the bed, Daniel found himself gingerly hiking his right hip up onto the mattress, his body angled so that he was almost face to face with Jack.

"Get comfy," Jack ordered, trying to slide over a smidgen so Daniel could get more of his body onto the mattress.

"I'm fine, Jack; don't strain yourself," Daniel murmured, and to still the other's agitated squirming he wrapped his fingers around Jack's and squeezed reassuringly. He was unprepared for the rush of blind, aching need that slammed into him at the simple twining of their fingers, and he couldn't be sure if Jack's sudden intake of breath was from the pain of the older man's movements or was a mirror reaction to Daniel's own stark hunger.

"I'm going home in two days, Daniel; three at the most," Jack said softly, his hand warm and solid and wonderful in Daniel's. "But before they let me out of here, I need for us to be clear about...things. About us. I need for you to tell me what you want, what you expect from me; I need..."

Jack's face contorted with a sudden inrush of bleak frustration, and he swore under his breath, his eyes flaring amber sparks. "Dammit, I need THIS," he muttered, and the hand not wrapped in Daniel's moved up to cup the side of the younger man's face.

"Jack, no..." Daniel protested softly, pulling back slightly from the wistful caress; but Jack merely sighed and sat up straighter, reached a bit further to stroke a shaky thumb along Daniel's jaw.

"Once, Daniel; just once, before they come back," he adjured the other softly, insistently. "You want to believe what happened before was just a fluke, that if we...kissed...again, you'd feel nothing. Less than nothing; maybe even a little disgusted with the both of us, eh?"

Daniel was shaking his head no, a stubborn 'Don't be ridiculous, Jack' lurking in his eyes; but behind that was something more, some abashed flicker that said maybe, just maybe, Jack had him pegged. If he kissed Jack and felt nothing now, all to the good, right? They'd get past this awkward spot, Jack would go home and finish recuperating, and all would return to normal. But what if they kissed and the SOMETHING from before was still there, still blazing like a thousand suns just beneath the surface of this facade they were each struggling to maintain?

At least I'M struggling, Daniel thought morosely, feeling the last edges of his resistance crumbling away. Jack's made it pretty clear what his feelings are, what he wants. Those feelings apparently haven't changed since he was shot, even though I've behaved like some sort of heartless son of a bitch these last few days. I'm afraid, he thought dully to himself, staring down at the curl of his fingers rubbing, rubbing with mindless agitation against Jack's. I'm afraid of what I started, afraid of just how MUCH I feel for him.

"Tick tock, Daniel," Jack urged softly, a glint of sparse humor ghosting a smile across his wan face. "Kiss now or forever hold your peace..."

"You know you're playing with fire, Jack," Daniel sighed, lifting their joined hands and breathing a quiet breath across their knuckles. "If someone walks in, if--"

"If we find out we're still crazy-mad-in-lust for each other?" Jack retorted, laying his hand once more against the side of Daniel's face. "Oh, yeah, playing with fire. Kiss me, Daniel; kiss me and find out."

And as if in a dream Daniel found himself leaning forward, following the gentle urging of Jack's palm alongside his cheek; the last thing he saw before his blue eyes slid shut was the expression of quiet consideration on Jack's face. Then his lips were skimming the Colonel's, dancing lightly across and just as quickly pulling away, a line of nervous perspiration trickling down his sides under his shirt.

"You call that a kiss?" Jack sneered quietly, and his hand slid around to cup the back of Daniel's neck, holding him still as he pulled his friend in for another try. Daniel supposed that this shouldn't be at all erotic; Jack was still weak as a kitten, smelled faintly of sickness and the infirmary and had the worst case of bed head Daniel had ever seen. But there was absolutely no question in Daniel's mind that Jack's mouth on his felt wonderful; and as those amazingly pliant and mobile lips moved seductively over his, Daniel's last coherent thought took the form of a single, fatalistic observation: Oh, yes, I'm definitely screwed.

"Two days, Daniel," Jack was whispering against the younger man's mouth, his right hand squeezing around Daniel's with brief force. "Two days. You decide if this is what you want, if this is what's next for us. Whatever you choose, we move on from that point; but no matter what, we stay friends. It's as simple AND as complicated as that. I don't want to lose this whole friendship thing...ever. I think you feel that, too."

Daniel merely nodded mutely, experiencing the same boneless weakness Jack was undoubtedly feeling now in the aftermath of his surgery; but for Daniel the sense of weakness stemmed from a completely different source. It was the overwhelming knowledge of just how far gone he already was, how incapable he felt of derailing this runaway train he and Jack were boarding together. Some part of him wanted to take it all back, to make things simple again like they used to be, to live once more in blissful denial and ignorance.

But he knew he wouldn't do it; he couldn't. Quickly, before anyone walked in and matters REALLY got sticky, Daniel allowed himself to lean in, to graze his lips lightly over Jack's once more, lifting his free hand to cup the other man's jaw and stroke the light rasp of stubble springing up there. Sweet God, he thought silently to himself, his heart filling up with terror's bitter aftermath; sweet God, I nearly lost him, he was so close to being gone...

"Jack," he breathed raggedly, the other's name a choked cry that ended in a renewed melding of lips, the lightest contact of tongue with tongue as their hearts beat hard and fast, as their joined fingers tightened and stroked and loved each other...

"God...Daniel," Jack sighed heavily against him, and then some infinitesimally small sound broke into the moment, set them jarringly apart, trembling, with Jack collapsing back into his pillow and Daniel springing guiltily to his feet.

"Okay, Daniel, here's your asp--" Janet Fraiser announced as she breezed into the room, her brisk words breaking off in displeasure as she took in Jack's pale, shaken condition.

"Daniel Jackson, what have you done?" she snapped; and as the color drained from Daniel's face, the irascible doctor stormed across the room and waved an admonishing finger in the air between both men. "Why ever did you let the Colonel raise his bed like that?" she scolded sharply, giving the discomfited archaeoligist a scathing frown. "Do you want him to pass out and tumble right off that bed onto his stubborn, cranky face?!"

"Um...sorry, no, of course not. I...I..." Daniel began lamely, and Jack tried to come to his hapless partner's rescue, dredging up a rather pasty smile as Janet tsked and grumbled and reclined the hospital bed and her woozy patient back to their original prone position.

"He tried to stop me; I just wanted to test out the air up there, get a little breeze, see some sights," Jack was murmuring piteously, trying without much success to charm the irate doctor out of coming up with some suitably gruesome medical torture as punishment for his infraction.

"I can't leave you two alone for five minutes, it's like setting two preschoolers in a room full of dynamite and asking them not to touch. Okay, that's it; out, out, out NOW, Dr. Jackson. Take these aspirin with you, drink plenty of water, and NO coffee, unless it's decaf. Why are you still here?" Turning from Jack's helpless form in the bed, Janet leveled a dagger stare on the archaeologist that had him backing rather hurriedly toward the safety of the open doorway behind him.

"Uh...I...um, I'll drop back by later, Jack," Daniel murmured with some chagrin, his eyes flashing the Colonel an amazingly shy and awkward note of promise.

"Coward, deserter, chicken," Jack growled accusingly in his friend's direction as Janet plucked some frightful looking silver implement from her pocket and gazed down at it almost lovingly. "You can't just leave me like this, throw me to-to...well, you know," he finished weakly, cringing at the raised eyebrow Janet Fraiser bestowed on him.

"My work, Jack; yes, I still have work," Daniel triumphantly plucked the excuse from the air, walking carefully backward toward the door. It wouldn't do to take his eyes off Janet or turn his back on her, he thought uneasily. "And about that other thing, with Sam and Teal'c...bridges to mend, Jack, bridges to mend."

"And miles to go before I sleep," Jack snarked irately as one of Janet's evil nurse minions slunk in behind Daniel with a lethal-looking syringe in hand. "You'd better make that decision pretty damned fast, Daniel; I don't know how much more of this infirmary 'hospitality' I can survive."

"Are you gone yet?" Janet asked sweetly, not bothering to turn around; and with an almost audible gulp Daniel was indeed gone, moving with unusual alacrity into the hallway just outside the medical ward. His lips felt swollen, hot and tingly, his heart was pounding with an excess of love and need and plain old fear, and as he stumbled rather dazedly down to the elevator and a trip to Samantha Carter's lab, he could still feel the phantom pressure of Jack's fingers around his, still feel the brush of stubble rasping against his jaw from the slide of skin on skin, breath to breath...

"Two days, my ass," Daniel sighed, disgruntled, as he slumped onto the elevator. "It's worse than 'Jerry McGuire' and that whole, dorky 'You had me at hello,' line. God, how does he DO this to me? Jack, you son of a bitch...Two days; how about two minutes? Two damned seconds?"

And as the helpful elevator decanted one muttering, befuddled SGC linguist onto Sam's level of the base, elsewhere in Cheyenne Mountain Jack O'Neill allowed his exhausted, aching body to slide into relieved slumber under Janet Fraiser's watchful care, his brown eyes drifting closed before he could note the subtle gleam of satisfaction in the good doctor's eyes. Janet didn't know the intimate details of whatever it was that had put such a nasty kink in her two dear friends' relationship; but she felt she'd had at least some small part toward seeing that those two rock-headed louts patched things up darned quick so that everyone's world could be set back right on its axis.

"I'm good," she sighed happily to herself as she tiptoed out of Jack's room. "Damned good." And no doubt Jack, had he been conscious, would have agreed.

Epilogue~

Shadows of night settle like ethereal mist, drifting on silent, insubstantial feet through the quiet rooms of the sleeping house--through Jack's house, Jack's hallway, the soft chimes of Jack's wall clock striking two a.m. as Daniel lets himself in the front door with his own personal key.

The weary archaeologist makes no sound as he carefully clicks the door shut behind him, reassuring himself in the process that it is safely locked once more. Still noiseless, Daniel then bends over and removes his shoes, sliding them with the barest whisper of motion to one side of the hallway, safely out of the traffic zone of anyone (perhaps a sleep-grogged, somewhat grumpy special ops Colonel?) who might pass that way in the morn. All is peaceful, the night settling around Daniel with a strangely benign familiarity; in the darkness the vague, blocky outlines of various pieces of Jack's furniture crouch in patient stasis, waiting for the first, stray streaks of dawn or the unexpected flick of a hastily thrown light switch to rouse them from their torpor back into their usual, serviceable forms.

Daniel pads across the floor, silent and purposeful and yet oddly reverent of the stillness all around him. Secure in his knowledge of the location of every bit of furniture--of every potential obstacle in his path--the linguist moves nimbly inside Jack's home, exhibiting a grace that seems peculiarly out of character for him, given his usual absent-minded tendency to stumble his way into difficulties of one sort and another.

He reaches the staircase without incident now and slides one sock-covered foot onto the bottom step, his hand reaching in the gloom for the curving handrail at his right side. As he ascends the stairs his heart beats in a slow, steady rhythm, his breathing quiet and easy; and even in the absence of any clear, revealing light, there emanates from his figure a sense of strangely surreal beauty.

The darkness covering him cannot completely cloak the physical evidence of a body that is lean but nicely muscled, and the faint lines of his climbing silhouette bespeak a face and form of uncommon interest and vitality. One does not need to see the actual blue of his eyes in this dark stairwell to recognize the flame of restless intelligence that burns in their depths and makes itself known even here in the murkiest of shadows. In the gloom of deepest night, an aura of some singularly focused energy radiates from his soundless figure, imbuing the air around him with an indefinable sense of breathless anticipation; and as he reaches the head of the stairs and steps onto the landing, the very walls enclosing him all around seem to draw in a shivering sigh of inchoate longing.

He has half-expected what happens next, has tried in his methodical way to prepare himself for it; but when one strong arm snakes out of the darkness at the top of the stairs and wraps itself around his waist, tugging him forward into the blackness, he can't quite stifle the small oomph! of startled reaction that erupts from his lips as the front of his body makes intimate contact with Jack O'Neill's hard length.

"You're late," Jack whispers against Daniel's ear, the words so soft that Daniel half thinks he just imagined them. But that's fine, that's okay, he muses dimly; the whole concept of rational thought seems to escape the pleasure-drunk archaeologist right now as Jack's hands begin a slow, thorough exploration of key areas of Daniel's anatomy.

"You should be asleep," Daniel scolds without conviction as he allows himself to be forced up against one wall of the upstairs hallway; Jack merely growls warningly in reply and wedges one hard knee between Daniel's thighs, sliding his right hand down to brush teasing, insistent fingers against the front of Daniel's jeans. The already-snug material seems to become twice as constrictive as Daniel swells in helpless desire under Jack's hand; and with a frustrated groan the younger man captures Jack's face between his palms and drags the Colonel's mouth to his, sealing his full lips over the older man's with fierce possessiveness.

"Was it fun, making me wait?" Jack mutters hoarsely beneath Daniel's kiss, his teeth exacting erotic penance as he nips Daniel's lower lip and gives it a borderline-painful tug. A shiver of dark lust rushes through Daniel's blood, and his answering growl holds both heated threat and promise as he thrusts against Jack's questing hand in the darkness.

"Was it fun, waiting?" he retorts breathlessly, letting loose a low, throaty snort of carnal laughter as his provocative taunt sends Jack into a frenzy of need. There goes another one, he thinks absently, even as he revels in the sound of cloth ripping, even as he feels the freedom of the shredded bits of his shirt falling away under Jack's fiercely determined hands. Gotta go shopping this weekend, my wardrobe bill is getting ridiculous...

But he loves it, loves with a mad passion the controlled violence of Jack O'Neill wrenching open the buttons of his jeans now and stroking hard, hungry fingers down inside the enticing space between Daniel's obstructing clothes and touch-starved flesh.

"Jack...!" Daniel exclaims in a low, shaky rasp, his back pressing flat against the wall as the other man pushes him hard, his strong hands manuevering their way with relentless sensuality down the front of Daniel's underwear. "Jack, you should lie down, we should go to bed, at least--"

"Shut up," Jack growls impatiently, the gleam of his dark, passion-fueled eyes riveting Daniel's attention in the inky gloom between them. "I want this; I want you HERE, right here...like this, Daniel, just like this..."

And Daniel loses the ability to think, to protest, to do anything but moan and gasp and arch into the touch of the one that he hungers for above all others. He finds himself almost sobbing with need as the wet, silky heat of Jack's mouth becomes his whole universe, pulls him down and down into swirls and whorls and dizzying spirals of mind-blowing orgasmic bliss. His entire being becomes one giant, pulsing nerve ending of infinite pleasure, his hands curling around the salt-and-pepper strands of Jack's hair as he moans and pleads and swears incoherently in the throes of all this man can do to him. His guttural rasp of completion sinks away into the quiet watchfulness of the house around them, and his knees go weak as he feels Jack pull himself somewhat shakily up the younger man's torso, his rough Colonel hands grasping Daniel's willing flesh with strange and wonderful gentleness on the trip up the linguist's body.

"God, Daniel; what you make me feel, what you make me want..." Jack bites out, his breath hot against the side of Daniel's neck. "I'm all done waiting, I have you just where I want you..." Jack's hand finds Daniel's in the darkness, grasps it and moves it commandingly to the engorged rise of his own savage desire.

"Like this? You want this, Jack?" Daniel gasps roughly, gliding his eager tongue in a deliciously wet path down the column of Jack's throat as he allows Jack's hand to guide his own in freeing and stroking the rigid erection straining against his fingertips. "What else do you want, Jack; tell me what you want..."

"I'm going to fuck you so good, Daniel," Jack growls, trembling and cursing under Daniel's fiendishly skilled hand. "I want you up against the wall, want to pound into you, feel you thrust back against me so hard, so strong...I want to crush my chest into your back, press my legs against yours, hold you here and feel our sweat running together, smell your scent all around me...I want to fill you up, Daniel, hear you scream when you come for me..."

"All talk, Jack, so much fucking TALK!" Daniel hears himself grit out in an agony of unbearably frustrated arousal. He is almost beside himself with lust at the feel of Jack so hard and ready in his hand, at the musky tang of sweat and unbridled sexual excitement that seeps from Jack's heated flesh into his own. "Can't you do anything but talk, for God's sake?"

"Oh, hell, yeah," Jack purrs, pushing himself more fully into Daniel's circling, stroking fingers; with his chest pressing into Daniel's, he rubs against the younger man, eliciting the faintest, rasping friction of nipples over nipples in time with the harsh acceleration of Daniel's tormented breathing. The small, puckered ridge of Jack's gunshot wound scar, high on the left side of his chest, glides its own rough ecstasy against Daniel's sensitized skin, and the older man is filled with an almost savage exultation as he listens to Daniel's garbled pleas to be fucked, oh Jesus, please just DO it...!

"Do you love me, Daniel?" he whispers now against the other man's gasping mouth, his teeth taking Daniel's lower lip and tugging warningly, a groan of insuperable pleasure trembling in his throat at the sensation of Daniel's strong fingers on him, taking him right up to the edge. "Tell me you love me, say it--"

"I love you, Jack; oh, God, you know I love you. Please, Jack, please...!"

"Oh, I always aim to please, Daniel," Jack purrs in a sultry rasp; and as he regretfully pushes Daniel's hand away from his throbbing, rock-hard need and rather roughly spins the younger man to face the wall, he feels his heart pounding strongly, indomitably, with the force of his love,with the exultation of sharing himself like this with this man, with the one he's come to realize he loves beyond measure. His blood roars with the heady intoxication of this power, this force, that quivers so wildly between them; and as Daniel presses himself tightly against the wall, hands reaching and spreading across the wallpaper in desperate supplication, Jack grasps the unfastened waistband of Daniel's jeans from behind and begins to work the tight denim down over the enticing curve of the linguist's taut buttocks, thinking wryly to himself in some distant part of his lust-soaked brain that Janet probably didn't have THIS particular activity in mind when she suggested he work at recuperating from home.

"Jack...please, Jack," Daniel murmurs now, his voice a drunken slur of frustrated need; and as Jack procedes to oblige his lover, the night drops its secretive cloak around them while the quiet house waits and watches, approving.

The End~