Hardwired

by iiiieyes

Winner of the 2010 GateFic Awards Gen Fic - Daniel Jackson - Episode related. SG-1 find themselves enmeshed in Daniel's nightmares. Yet another reinterpretation of the events around Fallen & Homecoming.

HARDWIRED

Colonel Jack O'Neill bolted upright in bed, swearing volubly as his feet hit the floor, jarring his spinning head. For cryin' out loud, he had enough nightmares of his own, thank you very much, without turning his brain into some kind of POD storage unit for someone else's.

How the hell had that archeologist managed to hardwire himself into his brain again?

It had to stop. This time around he was not going to let the kid drive him crazy. He'd had a whole year to work on his ability to just say no, and he would do it too!

Starting tomorrow, Jack told himself as he pulled on discarded BDUs over his sweat-soaked shorts. All right, the day after tomorrow, since according to the clock on the night stand it was already three-plus hours into tomorrow.

Daniel's nightmares weren't getting any better; if anything, they were getting worse. And short of someone like Teal'c physically restraining him, O'Neill was incapable of leaving the archeologist to sweat it out alone.

The first time it had happened he'd been in his own house, in his own bed, sleeping the sleep of the truly righteous.

He'd tucked a flesh and blood Daniel in himself that first night back after hauling the archeologist home from Vis Uban. The kid had been exhausted, had literally been asleep before his head hit the pillow, and Jack had stayed for several hours just watching him sleep.

Probably would have slept there himself, except the general had ordered him home.

Uselessly, as it turned out.

O'Neill had woken that first night, just after 3:00 a.m., with his heart pounding as if it would beat its way out of his chest. He'd slogged to the bathroom and splashed water on his face before he'd realized he was wide awake and his heart was still galloping like undomesticated equines.

It had taken several long moments staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror to reconcile the intense physical reaction of his body with the calm, unclouded reasoning of his mind.

Until an analysis of what was different had had him throwing on whatever clothes came to hand, scooping up his keys, and racing out of the house to make the twenty minute drive back to the Mountain in a record eleven minutes.

Jack had come off the elevator at a dead run, swiped his card through the reader, and flung the door open just as Daniel sat straight up in bed, gasping for air, soaked in a cold sweat.

The scenario had repeated itself, almost as precisely as if he'd been reliving the continuous Fruit Loops circuit, for the last five nights.

Except O'Neill, after the second night of racing back, had refused to leave the base. Consequently he was only next door instead of ten miles and twenty minutes away.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow he would start saying no.

Tonight he slammed out of the adjacent quarters, swiped his card through the reader next door, and sluiced through the darkness, switching on the bedside lamp as he dropped down on the edge of the bed.

"Daniel." Jack grabbed the younger man by the shoulders. "Daniel, wake up!" He shook him lightly. "Come on, this is getting old, kid, we've got to fix this."

The blue eyes snapped open, wide and wild.

"Ouch."

They banged heads as the archeologist surged up quicker than Jack anticipated.

"Jack?" Daniel pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, squinting at the colonel.

"Got it in one. You awake?"

"Yes." Daniel slumped back against the headboard. "Sorry." He reached automatically for his glasses, glancing at the clock, though he hardly needed to. The nightmare had come like clockwork, same time, same channel, for the last five nights.

Jack waited out the drowning man impression, then the still-shaking-like-a-leaf-in-a-hurricane piece, and finally the segment on where-do-I-look-since-I-refuse-to-meet-Jack's-gaze.

"Daniel?" We're so going to have to talk about this. Sooner or later.

That brought the archeologist's gaze shooting back to the colonel. The lean jaw clenched tight, probably to stop the chattering teeth.

Hmm, it still worked, though Daniel refused to acknowledge the sub-vocal message by more than the startled look.

"Go back to bed." He scooted past the colonel, slid his feet over the edge of the bed and dropped his head into his hands. "I'm going to get in the shower."

"Good idea. It'll warm you up." Jack slumped sideways. "Mind if I use your bed? Since you're not going to."

"Feel free," the archeologist mumbled, pushing himself up.

The sound of the shower lulled Jack into a light doze. The special ops colonel, however, was still on full alert and opened his eyes as Daniel padded quietly back into the room.

"Feel better?"

Sweat-soaked scrubs had been exchanged for BDUs and a t-shirt.

Daniel glanced over as he pulled a chair out from the table. "I'm fine, go back to bed," he repeated, almost convincingly.

Jack shoved the pillow back up against the head board and rolled over, sliding up to lean back against it. "I need you to talk about this, Daniel."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Ya, know," the colonel crossed one foot over the other knee, "I actually bought that for the first - what . . . three . . . four nights?" He waved a dismissive hand. "Not so much now."

"Too bad."

"What?"

"I said," Daniel enunciated clearly, "too bad."

"I heard you the first time. Too bad what?"

"Too bad you don't believe me; I'm not going to argue with you. So go back to sleep, or go back to bed." Just leave me alone.

"Like that's going to happen," O'Neill responded to the unspoken thought.

Daniel only sighed and reached for the artifact he'd been working on until a couple of hours ago. He'd finally given in to the exhaustion circling in his head like buzzards circling prey and gone to bed around 1:00 a.m.

Jack had effectively locked him out of his office at night, so Daniel had begun bringing work back to the VIP suite he was currently calling home, knowing full well the colonel was likely to ban that sooner or later.

The man had a mother bear complex that would have looked good on a grizzly.

"How's this for an option? You can't sleep, so I have Doc Frasier pump you full of drugs until you can't do anything but sleep."

"And I get to live the nightmare in a continuous loop?" Daniel looked over at the man on the bed. "Like that's going to happen," he returned pointedly.

Jack shrugged. Okay, so Daniel had his number already; nothing new there. Daniel had had his number forty-eight hours into their initial acquaintance, too. "You've got to sleep," he scowled. "You can't keep this up indefinitely. And put that damn thing away! Am I going to have to have you strip-searched before you leave your office to make sure you're not bringing work back here? Talk to me, Daniel."

Sighing again, Daniel pushed away the artifact but kept the pen he'd picked up, clicking it tensely.

Jack got up, crossed the room and took the pen out of his hand, slumping down across the table from him. "Are you remembering anything?" he asked quietly, reaching a hand to cover Daniel's nervously dancing fingers. He could still feel left over tremors from the nightmare occasionally pulsing through his friend.

Daniel blinked, shook his head, and pulled his hand back, wrapping his arms around his chest. "No." There was a slight hesitation. "But occasionally I'm getting . . . flashes . . . or something."

The self-hug rang all sorts of alarm bells.

"Flashes? Flashes of what?"

"Pictures, I guess." Daniel frowned.

"Flashes of pictures?" Jack pressed, though he kept his voice low and non-threatening. "What kind of pictures?"

"Just pictures. Like snap shots." Daniel closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "A house on a lake - with trees. Sand - nothing but hills and hills of sand. The Stargate - with an open event horizon." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Pyramids. Like snap shots," he repeated, shrugging.

Unconsciously he raised a hand to his temple, massaging the nagging ache.

"Headache again?"

"Not too bad this time." Daniel immediately dropped his hand to the table.

"Did you take something for it?"

"Yes," he replied, exasperated. "I took some Tylenol."

"Good. What else are you seeing?"

The answer was slower in coming this time. "A room. A room with lots of books and a . . . fish tank, I think."

"And you don't recognize any of them?" Jack questioned.

Both Frasier and Mackenzie had decreed information should be given to Daniel only as he asked, on the supposition that when he was ready to handle it, he would ask. Except there hadn't been a single question in the five days he'd been Earth-side; a thing that bothered Jack almost more than the missing memories.

A Daniel not asking questions was like Abydos without sand.

"Anything else?" the colonel queried again.

"Why?"

"How is why an answer to anything else? Do you recognize any of the pictures?"

"The Stargate, none of the rest." And again. "Why? Do you?"

Clearly there was going to be no answer forthcoming to his own question.

"The house is probably my cabin in Minnesota. We used to go there fishing on long weekends."

"And the sand?"

"Probably Egypt, considering you're seeing pyramids too. Though it could be Abydos. You grew up in Egypt. Abydos was the first planet we went to after you opened the Stargate."

Who'd ever know if he cheated a little and fed the archeologist just enough information to make him ask questions?

"I opened the Stargate," Daniel said in surprise. "Oh, you mean I dialed out somewhere."

"No, I mean you figured out how to make the Stargate work," Jack corrected patiently, and offered a quick synopsis of the story of Daniel's rainy day in academia and subsequent recruitment by Catherine Langford. "Any of this ringing a bell?"

"No . . . So I came here?"

Perfect. Right where the colonel wanted him, asking questions finally.

"Yes. You translated the cover stone on the spot, informed the guys working on it that Stairway to Heaven was a Led Zepplin song and their translation was inaccurate and flawed; it was gateway, not stairway."

"Yeah, right."

"Okay, so I made up the Led Zepplin part, the rest is true. Then they showed you the Stargate. That one took a little longer. A whole two weeks."

Misunderstanding the sarcasm, Daniel's eyebrows went up. "Thought they'd made a bad bargain, huh?"

Jack smirked. "Well - not exactly. Carter and a team at the Pentagon had been working on the thing for more than two years, so we didn't have really high expectations. You practically blew us out of the water when you, uh . . . informed us, two weeks later, that the Stargate glyphs were actually pictures of constellations and various combinations of the glyphs were addresses to different planets. "

"No way."

"You don't believe me?"

"No . . ." Daniel replied uncertainly.

"I can show you the official reports in the morning." He stopped and waited.

Daniel, obviously trolling his non-existent memory, shook his head fretfully. "You're sure you've got the right guy?"

For a moment Jack just stared at the archeologist, then threw back his head and laughed until tears rolled down his face.

"Oh, I hope and pray you get your memory back, because I am so not going to let you forget this! Geez! I may even get a guffaw out of the Jaffa with that one!"

He straightened, wiped streaming eyes, and tried hard to contain his laughter in the face of Daniel's bewildered consternation.

"Sorry," he gulped, without apparent contrition. "I can't help it!" And he was off again, laughing so hard he had to hold his aching side.

"Thanks!" Jack gasped. "I was probably drunk off my ass last time I laughed this hard and I was probably with you. So really, thanks, Daniel. I needed that."

"You're welcome, I'm sure," the archeologist replied, somewhat less than graciously.

Several deep breaths later, O'Neill grinned at his companion. "I admit I haven't actually seen them, but I understand your face is on wanted posters all over the galaxy. A bounty hunter for the Goa'uld told us you're on the top ten intergalactic wanted lists just for opening the Gate for Earth. Not to mention you've managed to piss off more than your fair share of System Lords. So . . . where were we?"

"I'm still here. You apparently went off on a little side trip."

"Yeah, well, it's 3:30 in the morning. I haven't slept more than a few hours at a time in several days, so I'm a little punchy. I'm sorry." Jack yawned, covertly studying his friend. "Look, I know you've figured out you're a bright guy. Why don't you believe me?"

The archeologist crossed his arms on the table and put his head down. "Don't know. Nice bedtime story though."

Jack let him slide almost to the edge of sleep again before asking quietly, "So, what else? . . . Daniel?" he prompted, just in case the kid actually had gone to sleep.

"Hmm?"

"Tell me."

"A room."

"The room with the fish tank?"

"No."

"What?"

"Just . . . a room . . . with windows . . ."

"With windows? Not in the Mountain then?"

"The infirmary . . . I think."

Oh, crap. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all.

"Because . . . ?"

"Because there's lots of machines . . . beeping . . . swishing . . ."

"What else?"

"A body."

Okay, it was still possibly salvageable.

"Yeah, we spend a lot of time in the infirmary. SG-1 has special reserved beds," Jack said lightly.

"I don't think so."

Oh, yeah right, O'Neill. This is what you get for trying to be smart. Way beyond salvageable.

"This is what the nightmare's about, isn't it?"

There was a long silence before Daniel finally asked, "Why?"

O'Neill sighed. "I've been in it a time or two now, and while I admit it's not particularly a place I want to go, I will, if we need to."

"Why?" Daniel repeated.

"Why don't I want to go there? Or why will I if we need to?"

"Both."

"Because," Jack said, unable to keep the hard edge out of his voice, "I'm still pissed about it, a year later. But that's neither here nor there. We need to fix this and I need you to understand I'll do whatever I have to do in order to see it through."

"You're pissed at me?" Daniel moved his arm and tilted his head.

"Yes, Daniel, I am. But what happened between you and me needs to be discussed when you're in full possession of your senses, because I can't promise it won't end up in the gym with me beating the crap out of you."

"Another self-defense lesson?"

The colonel's eyebrow flew up in an excellent imitation of Teal'c. "Now isn't that an interesting memory to recover."

"No memory," Daniel sighed, plainly hearing the hurt wrapped around the anger. "It was just a pre-programmed response. Honest, it came out automatically. I wasn't even thinking."

Jack slumped forward to plant his elbows on the table, burying his face in his hands. "Who's in the room?"

"No one."

"Well, that's just wrong," Jack returned emphatically, "at least one of us was with you the entire time. We never left you alone."

A long moment of silence filled up the room

"Jack?"

"Daniel?" He could hear the tension beginning to build in the archeologist again.

"I don't think there's much I'm afraid of . . ."

"Oh, how I wish there was," the colonel muttered. "That would be a hundred and ten percent true," he agreed out loud. "You have absolutely zero instinct for self-preservation. And while we're on the subject, this is not a good thing. So let's work on instilling some this time around so you don't end up in the ether again any time soon."

"Jack?"

"Daniel?"

"If that's true, why would a room in the infirmary give me nightmares? I'm not afraid of dying. And besides, it looks like I didn't even die? Did I?"

"Do you want to know what happened?"

"Do I?"

"I'm sure you will sooner or later. So the question becomes, do you want to know now?"

"You think knowing will stop the nightmares?"

Jack rubbed his gritty eyes. "I'm not a shrink; I couldn't even beginto guess at the answer to that question. But here's another one. If it stops the nightmare, is it worth it?" He dropped his hands to the table top, lacing his fingers loosely.

"Probably," Daniel said, unconsciously hunching his shoulders, "if it really stops it."

Well, he'd opened up this can of worms, Jack thought, sighing as he scratched his head. Frasier would probably tear him apart limb by limb if she found out.

When he began, he kept his voice flat and emotionless, finishing with, "So when you asked to me to tell Jacob to stop, I did. Within a very few minutes it was over . . . and you were . . . gone. No body, no nothing, just - gone."

"I'm sorry," Daniel said finally, after another long silence.

He would have had to be deaf, dumb, and blind to be unaware of the underlying anguish in the flat delivery. He let silence fill up the space between them again, unable to dredge up words of comfort for either of them.

Theoretically he was aware radiation poisoning would be a slow and painful dying, but an intellectual understanding could not synthesize a memory. And because it could not, Daniel thought it probable the nightmare would continue to plague him either until the memory returned, or at the very least, until he could gain some measure of control over his life again.

Currently he was at the mercy of whatever mood yanked him down hardest and fastest, unable to master any kind of disciplined order in his mind. That, more than anything, was driving him crazy.

"I've been thinking," he began hesitantly, after several minutes of blank silence.

Jack looked over at him.

"I understand why the Air Force won't let me go back to archeology, but I've found a couple of decent, small colleges on the internet, with good language programs. I could probably get a job teaching. They'd let me do that, wouldn't they?"

"Oh, for cryin' out loud, Daniel. Trust me; you don't want to go back to teaching. You'd end up with a bunch of teenage debutantes decimating French or cajoling Latin verbs. We have so got to get you back through the Stargate again."

"Conjugating."

"What?"

"I think you mean conjugating."

"Yeah, whatever. You'd hate it. And doesn't that word mean . . ." Jack looped a finger in the air, entirely unhelpfully.

"What?" Daniel frowned. "Oh. No, that's conjugal."

"How's that different?"

"One has a T and one has an L. Did I teach before?"

"Yes, at the Oriental Institute in Chicago. Mostly though, I think you were working on your own research. Just teaching to fill in what grants didn't cover in the way of basic necessities."

"Chicago?"

"Yeah. Kind of funny when you think about it; my folks still live there. I would have been in Iraq when you were there."

"Why are you listed as next-of-kin in my personnel file?"

"What?" Jack did an about face inside his own head. "How did you come by that information?"

"I looked it up."

"How?"

Nobody had stopped to consider the information on file in the base computers.

"On my computer in my office."

"Those files are restricted."

"Really? Even from the party whose file it is?" Daniel pushed off the table and sat up, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes wearily.

"Don't pull that innocent crap with me. You had to go through several layers of security to get into your file."

"It's my file." Dr. Jackson slumped back in the chair.

"Uncle Sam doesn't look at it quite the same way. Don't do it again. You want something, you ask me."

"Would you have given it to me?"

"That's beside the point. I'm not fooling around here. Don't do it again."

"First of all," the genius pointed out, "I don't need to do it again. Secondly, I didn't go into anyone else's file."

"That's not the point."

"Well, then, what is the point?"

Jack sighed. "Why didn't you ask me?"

Daniel rubbed at his forehead again, echoing Jack's sigh. "Other than figuring you wouldn't give it to me? Mostly because I didn't know what questions to ask. I have no point of reference; no beginning or end. Who am I?" He paused to try and organize some of the thoughts floating around in his head. "You can only tell me who I am from your subjective point of view. I'm not the same person to Sam or Teal'c. I knew my file would give me facts and I thought maybe it would jar something loose."

"And did it?"

"No, but it wasn't entirely an exercise in futility. At least I know where to start asking questions. Like why are you listed as my next-of-kin?"

"Well, if you read the whole file, you know your parents were killed in a freak accident when you were pretty young. They were both only children and you were their only offspring. Your mother's father is still alive, but you sent him off to live with the giant aliens he kind of sort of introduced us to."

"So, no siblings."

Had he ever managed to sidetrack Daniel Jackson, Jack wondered idly. "Hey, Carter would be offended."

"No relatives at all."

"Besides Nick? No, although my mom tried to adopt you a couple of years ago. I refused to let her, since it meant the inheritance would have to be split. Hey, are you even listening to me?"

"I was married?"

Jack closed his eyes, seeing in his mind's eye the little slot on the standard form that in Daniel's file read - Spouse: Deceased.

"Yes." Obviously his answer was superfluous.

"How could I forget something like that?" Daniel hunched over the table again, burying his face in an elbow.

Jack sighed deeply. "Daniel . . . Sha're loved you . . . beyond measure! The two of you were like . . ." He struggled to find an appropriate parity. "I don't know . . . like cake and candles, the 4th of July and fireworks."

Appropriating Daniel's self-comfort trademark, Jack wrapped his arms around his chest.

"Look, if it's any consolation, I don't think you've 'forgotten' so much as you've had your brain scrubbed."

At exactly what point, he wondered, had he lost control of this Q & A session?

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Jack snorted. "Your buddy Oma did a number on you."

"Oma?"

"Oma Desala," the colonel responded wearily. "You met her on Kheb a few years ago. She's the one who helped you ascend. It may be when you descended, she . . . ah . . . did a little realigning of your brain cells."

"Why?"

"Well, I suppose it could be because you were . . . uhm . . ." Jack found his hands waving emptily in the air. He snatched them back and tucked them under his arms again. "You were . . . maybe breaking the rules and . . . maybe she stopped you. We don't know why you descended," he rushed on before Daniel could interrupt with more questions, or his own guilty conscience kick into high gear. "We don't know if you're here by choice or if you were kicked out. But if you were kicked out it's a good bet they don't want you to remember. And even if you weren't kicked out, at the very least, they probably don't want you to remember what you learned while you were with them."

"Why?"

"Oh, for cryin' out loud! How should I know? I'm just guessing, and this is really Carter's theory, not mine. I want to believe you came back of your own free will."

"And if I didn't?"

"It's now four o'clock in the morning and neither of us has had more than a few hours sleep in the last five nights. I'm not prepared to discuss philosophical differences at four in the morning."

As Daniel made no immediate response to this, O'Neill allowed himself a measure of guarded relief.

"Obviously I must have been here already if you knew my wife."

Oh, shit. Maybe he should forge ahead with the philosophical discussion after all.

Jack said nothing, merely waited, recognizing full well Daniel wasn't done.

"Was it someone on the staff here?"

"No," he responded woodenly.

"Then where would I have met her?" Daniel raised his head again. "Surely not - off world? I was married to an . . . alien?"

That earned a twisted smile from the colonel. "Yeah, actually, she was. But you should know, at least from Vis Uban, not all aliens are non-humans. Sha're was probably a descendant of some long ago Egyptian Pharaoh. You thought it likely Abydos was originally colonized by transplanted Tau'ri Egyptians. There's solid evidence for the hypothesis that many of the planets were originally colonized with humans from Earth, or Tau'ri, as Earth humans are called by most of the rest of the galaxy. Seeded, so to speak, by both the bad guys and the good guys."

"Galaxy," Daniel breathed softly. "Most of the rest of the galaxy. I know I came back with you through the Stargate, but it doesn't seem real. What did you say her name was?"

"Sha're."

"That's beautiful," Daniel sighed wistfully.

"She was beautiful. You were meant to be together, Daniel. Even if it wasn't destined to last a life time."

"What happened?"

"She died."

Daniel just looked at him.

Jack sighed again. "All right, she was killed during a mission that went very, very bad. And Frasier is so going to have my head if I give you worse nightmares than you're having already. Why don't we let this particular ghost lie dormant a little longer? At least until you remember this on your own. I don't think it's a good idea to be telling you this stuff when you don't have any perspective on it . . . do you trust me?"

"Is there some reason I shouldn't?" Daniel put his head down again. "I'm tired."

"Now there's a surprise. I'm exhausted and I've probably slept more than you. Will you at least try to go back to sleep?"

"No. But you can go back to bed. I'm fine."

"Dammit, Daniel!" Jack smacked his hand down on the tabletop, causing the linguist to jump nearly out of his seat. "That's another habit that needs to be broken before you start it up again. You cannot tell me you're fine when you're not!"

Another long silence, then, quietly, "What do you want me to say? Do you want to hear I'm only hanging on by a thread? That it's taking every bit of courage I possess just to keep hanging on? That I can hardly lay down without being assaulted by images so intense I don't want to close my eyes?" Daniel lifted his head to meet Jack's gaze. "But then you're intimately aware of that."

"I know how overwhelming this is for Carter, Teal'c and me." Jack crossed his arms on top of the table and leaned forward. "It has to be a hell of a lot more overwhelming for you. For a whole year you didn't have to eat, sleep or take a piss. And I know damn well eating and sleeping never made it to your top ten list of fun things to do. That alone has to be frustrating. Throw in this whole not remembering thing and you've just created Daniel Jackson's personal hell. Of course you're hanging on by a thread," O'Neill snapped, "any sane human being would be feeling exactly the same. Why shouldn't you?"

"So what?" Daniel snapped back, vibrating with tension. "Stop feeling sorry for myself?"

"Are you?"

"What?"

"Feeling sorry for yourself?"

"Fuck you, Jim." The chair shot back as Daniel surged up to pace angrily.

So they were back to Jim; except there'd been nothing accidental in Daniel's use of it.

Probably the best thing he could do was sit here and bear the brunt of Daniel's angry silence. If nothing else, perhaps it would reinforce for his friend he had no intention of backing down or bowing out.

Jack clicked on his internal time clock. It took twenty minutes of furious pacing before the archeologist began to wind down.

"Am I?"

O'Neill cocked his head. "What?"

"Feeling sorry for myself?"

"I don't know. Are you?"

"You said . . ."

"Whoa, there, space monkey, what I said was any sane human being would be feeling exactly like you are right now. I thought I was only reiterating the fact that you are human again, and entitled to feel angry, or hurt, or even sorry for yourself."

Daniel ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing in spikes. "I'm sorry."

"No need."

Jack rose, silently cursing his bad knees, and wandered across the room. He waited at the top of Daniel's next turn, then fell instep with him. Bridging the distance between them, he wrapped a hand around the back of Daniel's neck and brought them both to a stop.

"I need you to listen to me, and I mean really listen, okay?"

The lean jaw clenched, but Jack received a short, affirmative nod when he squeezed lightly.

"Carter, Teal'c, and I will do whatever you need us to do to help you hang on. If all you want us to do is keep tying knots as the rope pays out, that's what we'll do. Daniel, if you need us to hang on to you by one or both wrists while you're dangling out there, we'll hang on. If you need us to hang on to you by a foot, we'll hang on. And if you go over, we all go together and we'll reassess at the bottom. The one thing we're not going to do . . ." Jack cleared his suddenly very dry throat. "The one thing we're not going to do," he repeated with conviction, "is let you go again."

He watched Daniel swallow convulsively.

"And now I need you to tell me you're hearing what I'm saying."

"I hear you, Jack. But you don't understand." Daniel closed his eyes, blocking out the face so close to his own. "I don't know what I'm capable of at the moment, much less down the road."

"I'll tell you what you're capable of," Jack responded matter-of-factly. "You're capable of anything you set your mind to and I know because I've watched you do it time and time again. Set a problem in front of Daniel Jackson and he will eventually solve it, almost always with a win-win scenario. When we first met, you were a little like this. A little unsure of your place - a little unsure what was expected of you - a little unsure if you even wanted to be here. But you eventually grew into the knowledge that this was where you belonged - with Carter and Teal'c and me. If it doesn't come back any other way, you'll eventually grow into that knowledge again. Trust me, Daniel; I know what makes you tick - better than you do right now. In the meantime, will you let us be there for you?"

"I'm tired."

"I know. You're reeling with exhaustion. But that's not an answer to my question."

"I don't know!" Daniel smacked both hands to his aching head and pressed hard. "I just don't know if I can."

"All right," Jack replied quietly, backing off, "just know we're hear if you need us. Now, how about you come back and lie down. I won't make you sleep," he coaxed, when Daniel planted his feet and refused to budge. "Just come and lie down. I don't know if my knees can take hauling you up off the floor if you pass out on me."

Very reluctantly, Daniel let himself be induced to lie down again, but before his head touched the pillow he was shivering convulsively.

"I can't do this," he said miserably, curling into a ball. He could feel the hysteria rising almost as quickly as it had in the dream.

"Do what?" Jack, feeling like a heartless moron, kept a firm hand on the trembling shoulder.

The archeologist bolted up, despite the detaining hand, as the colonel tried to draw the covers over him.

"No!" he panicked, scrambling frantically for the side of the bed, bare feet smacking the floor as he folded in on himself. "I can't do this." He could barely draw breath into his searing lungs.

"Daniel!" Jack commanded. "Look at me!" He thudded to his knees in front of the younger man, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Open your eyes right now," he snapped, forcibly yanking Daniel up and giving him a hard shake. "Breathe with me! In . . ." O'Neill pulled air slowly into his lungs. "Out. . ." He let it out slowly. "Look at me!" Jack shook him again. "Dammit, Daniel! Breathe! In . . . Out . . . Come on, come on! This isn't a one time deal; you've got to keep it up! In . . . Out . . . In . . . Out . . ."

Bracing his elbows on his knees, Daniel dropped his head wearily. "Sorry," he ground out.

Slumping further over, he found himself leaning against Jack's shoulder, but could work up neither the energy nor the inclination to straighten up.

Jack lightly massaged the exposed nape. "No, I'm the one who should be saying sorry. I didn't understand what you were trying to tell me. Relax, I won't make that mistake again . . . just relax and breathe. Concentrate on breathing until it doesn't hurt anymore . . . relax, Daniel."

There was an ache in his own chest where that vulnerable old organ he occasionally acknowledged as his heart was lodged. He ran his hand lightly up and down the bowed spine before returning to massage the tense neck muscles.

It was a long time before the shivering began to lessen and Daniel's breathing finally evened out. A deep, almost convulsive sigh and Jack could feel him beginning to slide toward oblivion. As much as he didn't want to disturb the archeologist, his knees were too old to take much more abuse. Cautiously, he raised one off the floor, flexing his foot.

"Danny?" Jack curved a hand around Daniel's nape again, squeezing lightly. "We gotta come up with a better arrangement here. I'm going to blow a knee any minute now."

"Sorry," Daniel mumbled, shifting back. "Sorry, Jack."

He scrubbed both hands through his hair and over his face, trying desperately to wake up.

Jack, thankful the room was dimly lit, gritted his teeth as he turned, sat down so he was leaning back against the bed, and stretched out his other knee. He didn't realize he was grinding his teeth until he felt Daniel touch his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Daniel said again, anxiously.

"Don't worry about it. Come down here." O'Neill patted the floor beside him.

"Why?"

"Just do it, Daniel," Jack sighed. "You want me to make it an order?"

Daniel slid down beside him, a little warily, so they were shoulder to shoulder, both leaning back against the bed.

Visions of Netu, Jack thought. "I really need to sleep, and I'm not leaving you here alone," he said aloud, stretching up to flick off the lamp. "I don't bite, at least not hard, like Carter. And I'm an experienced nightmare chaser, used to do it for Charlie all the time."

An unnatural stillness momentarily possessed Daniel. Jack was asking for his trust again. This time it was a case of show, don't tell.

"Who's Charlie?" His eyes slid closed of their own volition.

"Charlie was my son," Jack said quietly. "Go to sleep, Daniel. I'll keep watch."

...

"Hey. What ya doing?" Jack strolled into the strangely uncluttered office without so much as a by-your-leave.

"Don't you ever knock?" the linguist inquired irritably, ripping off the piece of paper he'd been furiously scribbling on.

It was methodically crumpled and tossed over his shoulder to join a dozen companions on the floor.

"Your door was open," O'Neill pointed out. "You didn't use to expect us to knock when your door was open - before."

"Well I'd appreciate it now. What do you want?"

Jack had night duty. Usually Sam or Teal'c came to get him for lunch.

"I drew the short straw today." Jack eyed the paper wads on the floor. "It's lunch time. I'm in no hurry though, if you're not ready."

He scooped up several and tried an experimental overhand toss at the waste basket on the far wall, sinking three in a row, before missing a fourth.

"Shucks, broke my perfect record."

Glancing over the linguist's shoulder, he noted a transcribed sheet of English lying next to what looked like a Goa'uld stone tablet.

"Trouble with the artifact SG-3 brought back?"

Daniel had taken off his glasses, folded his arms on the desk, and dropped his head down on his arms. "No."

"What then?"

"Nothing." He straightened and pushed the legal pad away, drawing forward the tablet, knowing perfectly well Jack had no way of recognizing the translation had long since been completed. "It's coming along."

"You need a different book? I think there's still some of your stuff in storage here."

O'Neill glanced around the office, realizing with a start there wasn't a single book open on the counter or the desk. Come to think of it, he didn't remember seeing a book open anywhere since they'd moved Jonas out of the office and Daniel back in.

Previously, the linguist had translated with at least six dozen stacks of towering books covering every available space. Somehow, he had perfected the miraculous ability to pull the exact book he needed out of any pile without ever disturbing its architectural stability.

Jack turned in a circle, frowning. "What happened to all your books?"

"What books?"

"Your library? Your reference books? You know, everything you need to know about ancient civilizations that you can't get on CDROM? Or did it come out on DVD while you were . . . gone?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about and I wish you guys would quit tap dancing around the issue of my being gone." Daniel sighed. "Look, I'm not hungry. I'm not going to lunch today."

O'Neill scooped up several more wadded up missiles and lobbed them one at a time.

"Too bad."

Four more perfect shots pinged into the standard Air Force issue metal trash can.

"Too bad what?" Daniel echoed on another sigh.

"Too bad you're not hungry, because you're going to lunch anyway. See, that's another comfortable old routine I'm not going to let you fall back into."

"I don't have any comfortable old routines."

"At least not that you remember," Jack corrected. "But there are plenty we remember and we're not going to let you fall back into the bad ones." His gaze wandered over at least three half empty cups of coffee.

Daniel tracked it automatically.

"And do I need to remind you again caffeine is not a food group?"

"I'm not going to lunch today." The team linguist hunched over the translation, crossing out the perfectly translated last line and scribbling some gibberish that had nothing to do with the tablet.

Jack bent and picked up the remaining balls of paper; however, instead of pitching them all in the trash, he lined them up in a neat row on the end of the counter.

"What's wrong?" He picked up one and tossed it from hand to hand a couple of times.

"Nothing."

"Daniel?"

"Jack?"

An eyebrow went up. "If nothing's wrong why are you refusing to come to lunch?" O'Neill launched two more paper wads and began to juggle.

Daniel looked across at the colonel. "I'm not a two-year-old that needs to be passed off to the next grown-up."

Actually he felt a little like a new pet everyone was afraid to leave alone too long for fear he might not be completely house broken.

"You're pissed because I said I drew the short straw."

Daniel shrugged. "I don't give a damn who drew the short straw. I would have said the same thing if it'd been Sam or Teal'c. I'm tired, I don't feel good, and I don't want to eat. More significantly, skipping lunch one day doesn't make it a habit."

He scrubbed a hand across his eyes with weary resignation. He knew he was going to lunch, but perhaps he could get his point across.

Instead of answering, O'Neill caught all his paper balls. Returning two to the counter, he began to un-crinkle the one he'd kept.

It was snatched from his hand before he could get it open, along with the remaining crumpled balls lined up in front of him.

Two seconds later all four were slam dunked into the trash can and Daniel was reaching for his jacket.

"Daniel?" What the hell was that about? Jack tilted his head.

"Jack?" Can't you just leave it alone?

The cadence of their names felt so familiar. Why could he remember every vowel and consonant in Goa'uld, not to mention the dozen or so dead languages he seemed able to translate with ease, and yet could not place this man's face in any context?

Daniel sighed again.

"You want to tell me what that was all about?" Jack voiced his thought.

"Nothing. You win, I'll go to lunch."

The colonel shrugged. "I'm not going to make you go to lunch." He swung around and headed back to the door. "Carter and Teal'c will be down here in about five minutes, though, if I show up without you."

Which was true, especially today.

Daniel hesitated. As much as he wanted to assert his independence, he sensed the hurt he'd unintentionally inflicted and shrank from it. Life had been so much simpler on Vis Uban. Why hadn't he just stayed there? And what was it about this man in particular that so got under his skin?

"All right, I'm coming." He patted his jacket pockets, looking for his key card, found it in the back pocket of his pants and slid it through the reader to lock the door behind him."

"So, what's the deal?" he inquired, making an attempt at conversation as they got on the elevator. "Is the general going to let me out in the field any time soon?"

Jack turned his head to look at the younger man. "He's left it up to me," he said levelly.

"So?"

"As the team's C.O., I'm responsible for everyone's safety."

"So," Daniel repeated, "you're still assessing how much of a risk I'll be."

"Partly." Jack returned the faintly defiant look with another raised eyebrow. "As much as I want to get you off-world again, I don't think you're ready. There are some things we need to work out."

Daniel looked away. "Well, at least we're clear on that."

"What aren't we clear on, Daniel?"

The archeologist slumped against the side of the elevator and closed his eyes. There were so many things he wasn't clear on he had no idea where to begin.

So he didn't try.

Jack watched him struggling with emotions still extremely close to the surface and offered an out.

"So, I'm curious." He crossed his feet, then his arms, as he leaned back casually against the elevator wall. "How've you been translating stuff without all your books?"

Daniel shrugged. "Everything's been fairly simple they've brought back?" He hadn't stopped to question it, merely been thankful that he could still do something useful. "Speaking of books, how do I go about getting stuff out of storage?"

"Let's see, we've been through this before. I think we went to Systems Engineering. They found it and hauled it back up to your office."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, yeah, keep forgetting you don't remember. Few years back an alien thingy wanted something out of your brain, so he gave Carter, Teal'c, and me memories of your death, and took you to an underwater grotto where he probed your memory for some text you'd read on Babylon clear back in college. Although, come to think of it, college wasn't really that far behind you then."

"And you packed away my stuff?"

"We thought you were dead."

"So, how did you figure out I wasn't?"

"Wasn't what?"

"Dead?"

O'Neill scrunched up his face. "Ask Carter. Frankly, I don't remember."

He remembered perfectly well, thank you very much. Carter had agreed to do the cluck like a dog, bark like a chicken hypnosis thing, to which he'd strongly objected. In the end, though, he'd been very thankful she'd been willing, since it had confirmed all their uneasy feelings that Daniel really wasn't dead.

"You remember the alien thingy wanted some obscure Babylonian text and you can't remember how you figured out I wasn't dead?"

"Oh, for cryin' out loud, Daniel, it was years ago." Jack led the way off the elevator, grabbing a fistful of jacket when the kid went right instead of left. "I remembered we have to go to Systems Engineering to get your stuff back, isn't that good enough?"

"Oh, absolutely," Daniel intoned darkly.

"Look, we'll go right after lunch," Jack offered. "Maybe it will un-snag your translation."

Daniel said nothing, swallowing his sigh. He reached for the door to the Mess, wondering if he remembered incorrectly that it was usually open - and stopped short on the threshold.

"Welcome home, Daniel!" two hundred-plus voices chorused enthusiastically, as two hundred-plus grinning faces turned to greet him, including Major Samantha Carter and the Jaffa, Teal'c, his other baby-sitters, both of whom were standing just inside the doors.

Instinctively he backed up, only to be stopped by Jack's hand between his shoulder blades.

"Told you keeping it a surprise was a bad idea, Carter. Come on, Daniel, snap out of it," O'Neill ordered sharply, keeping his voice low. "I guarantee if you panic at the sight of old friends, I'm not taking you out to meet and greet with any new aliens."

"That's different," Daniel snapped back, fighting an overwhelming sense of dread. "I'm not expected to know anybody, or anything, we meet off world." He looked over his shoulder at the colonel. "Am I?"

"You are not expected to know anyone here, Danieljackson." Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "These individuals understand your memory has been taken from you. However, they are pleased to have you home again. Will you not give them the opportunity to express their pleasure in your return?"

Jaw clenched tight, Daniel eyed the towering alien. "Not like this. I can't . . . I don't . . . I . . ."

It seemed like panic awaited him at every turn. Everywhere he went people greeted him by name, wanted to touch him, wanted to walk him to his next destination, or follow him, even into the bathroom. He rarely left his office unless accompanied by another member of SG-1.

The 6'4" Jaffa gravely bowed his head. "Then O'Neill will inform them you are as yet too fragile to accept the simple tokens of esteem your friends wish to share with you at this time."

Jack gave Teal'c a grin and a thumbs-up.

Teal'c acknowledged with another raised eyebrow, causing Daniel to jerk his head around to look at Jack, who, of course, raised his own eyebrows.

"What?" Jack inquired, feigning innocence.

"I hate surprises."

"Well, not usually, but I did try to talk them out of this one. I thought we should have warned you. Not to worry, I can tell everybody -"

"No," Daniel shuddered, "don't do that."

"Daniel," Sam patted his arm, "it's okay if you don't want to do this. We just thought it might be fun to throw an impromptu welcome home party."

Jack, his hand still in the middle of Daniel's back, felt the 8.0 rector scale tremor.

"Seriously, you don't have to do this if you don't want to. I'll just tell everybody this isn't a good time."

He was unsurprised to see the archeologist visibly pull himself together and squelch the rising panic.

"No," Daniel sighed, squaring his shoulders. "I guess I can do this."

Jack exchanged quick glances with his other teammates and made a forward motion with his hand. "Well, then," he grinned, "after you, you're the man of the hour here."

"It's no big deal, Daniel, honest. Come on." Sam slipped a hand under his elbow and drew him forward. "Janet thought pictures might help jog your memory, so yesterday we asked everybody to bring in any pictures they had with you in them."

She pulled him along toward the nearest table and though he went reluctantly, he at least went.

Jack shambled along behind, keeping his face admirably straight.

Teal'c took their six.

The Jaffa eventually went in search of a box for the envelopes and small gifts being handed to Daniel as he was deluged with affectionate well wishes at every table. Many of the items he was given were things of his own he had no memory of - small artifacts and relics he'd had in his office that had been bequeathed by the remainder of SG-1 after his 'death'.

Daniel stilled instantly when a simple, primitive bowl was thrust into his hands. He was unaware the laughing, chattering mass of people around him quieted as well, watching as the long, sensitive fingers stroked the shape of the bowl.

"Sha're," he murmured, engulfed by a vision of laughing loveliness throwing her arms around him. "Sha're," he repeated so quietly it sounded like a whispered prayer.

He put a hand out instinctively and both Jack and Teal'c snatched at him; Jack grabbed a handful of jacket, Teal'c, his elbow.

Sam took his hand.

"Daniel?"

He blinked - and lost the vision. Blinked again - and found himself surrounded, with people pressing in on every side.

"This bowl was from your wedding, Daniel." Sam slipped both hands over his so he didn't drop the fragile artifact. "You and Sha're shared an Abydonian marriage ritual with this bowl."

Daniel slowly raised his eyes to Sam's. "Sha're," he said again, briefly closing his eyes.

The smile he produced was a little shaky, but he turned, withdrawing his hand from Sam's, to reach out to . . . for a moment he couldn't remember who had just handed him the bowl and then the name leapt to the forefront of his mind.

"Thank you, Caroline, for keeping this, and for returning it."

Caroline Dukane took his hand between her own, smiling beneficently on him. "It's so wonderful to have you back, Daniel. When will you be taking over the responsibility for the Archeology Department again, dear?"

"I have no idea what they're going to do with me. I'm not even certain they've decided to keep me yet." The smile he returned reached all the way to his eyes, the first genuine smile he'd managed since walking through the Mess doors.

"Oh, we're going to keep you," Jack intoned, loosening the hand in Daniel's jacket when it became apparent he wasn't about to take a nose dive. "You're over the restrictions, you know. We don't have to throw you back, so we figured we'd keep you for awhile longer."

"Well, just so you know," Caroline told Daniel, giving the colonel's fishing metaphor the attention it deserved, "I've already informed General Hammond, now that you're back, it's your headache again. How did you manage all of us?"

"Hey!" Jack jumped back in. "You can't dump that on him yet! At least let him get his bearings before you inundate him."

"Of course, dear. I can hold out for another few days . . . probably." Caroline's smile twitched suspiciously. "But I expect at least half your back pay for putting up with all those dreadful people you left me with while you were gone."

Since a number of those dreadful people were seated at the table SG-1 was currently visiting, there was general merriment all around. Sam had told him as they'd approached, everyone at this table had worked for him; that in fact, he'd been instrumental in hiring all but Jonas Quinn, who was seated with this group of people.

The Linguistics Department, which he'd also hired and been in charge of, occupied the next table. There was much good-natured ribaldry passing back and forth between the two tables and a bit of competition for Daniel's attention.

Since he'd worked closely with both departments there were lots of pictures between these two groups, both of whom had put together elaborate posters.

"Holy Hannah!" Sam exclaimed, snatching up the Linguistics poster. "Who has these originals? I want copies! Siler!"

She glanced around quickly for the Sergeant whom they'd discovered had an innate talent for photography.

He appeared at her elbow almost as though he'd ringed down beside her.

"Major?"

"Siler, I need copies of these pictures. Whose are they?" she asked again, taking time to look around the table. "And how did you manage to keep them out of circulation?"

"They're mine, Major." Captain Celin Ward, at the end of the table, waved her hand gleefully.

Sam glanced at Daniel as he came to stand behind her.

"Holy Hannah is right!" he echoed, blushing to the tips of his ears. "Who let me out of the house dressed like that?"

In the center of a poster with a collage of pictures of Daniel, was an 8X10 taken at the Women's Auxiliary Benefit immediately following the 9/11 tragedy. Instead of their usual charity auction, a couple of general's wives had enlisted the support of General Hammond in setting up a Bachelor Auction, which he had virtually ordered Jack and Daniel to participate in.

"I didn't know any of our crew had taken pictures!" Sam dramatically pressed a hand to her chest. "Oh, be still, my heart. Captain, seriously, how could you have kept these to yourself all this time?"

"Actually, I kind of lost the roll of film. Somebody took it out of the camera before I realized it and it must have gotten tossed in the back of a drawer. These pictures showed up when I took a bunch of old rolls of film to be developed last week. I picked them up just before we got Dr. Jackson back."

In the picture Daniel was wearing a snug pair of faded jeans, strategically ripped over the left knee and just under the right front pocket. Janet Frasier had speculated those jeans hadn't seen the light of day since his last university archeological dig. The jeans had been paired with a white tank top, and he had a leather bomber jacket slung over his shoulder.

The photographer had caught him just as he turned on the runway, so the long, lean length of his body was in profile, and he was looking down, smiling at someone in the audience. The picture captured a side of Daniel that only rarely came out to play; the flirtatious, absolutely gorgeous man, whose wicked sense of humor was, more often than not, shrouded by the darkness that stalked him mercilessly.

"And barefoot," Sam moaned, patting her chest again. "Oh, be still my heart," she repeated. "Have you got pictures of the colonel too?"

"Oh, yes! Shall I put together another poster for you, Major?"

"That's okay, just loan me the negatives."

"Sure, I brought them to work this morning. I expected there to be a huge demand for reprints."

"Siler, I want reprints of everything the Captain has. By the way, you are going to post this somewhere aren't you?" Sam held the poster at arm's length. "Like on the bulletin board outside the door here?"

"Sam!" It was Daniel's turn to moan. "Not the bulletin board."

"Give it up, D.J., they're way out of your league," Jack advised, finding himself a seat.

They were going to have trouble dragging Carter away from this table.

"T, my man, you might want to find someplace to plant yourself. I suspect we're going to be here for awhile."

By the time SG-1 sat down at their own table, plates piled with food from half a dozen cultures and at least as many different planets, Daniel had gone from panicked to overwhelmed.

"Well?" Jack inquired, trying something that looked like a fruit and tasted like a vegetable. "Aren't you glad I dragged you down here?" He discreetly rearranged his plate to shove whatever it was off to the side.

"I think I might have just had an important revelation." Daniel put his fork down, but said no more, just sat looking at his plate.

"Yeah? . . . So are you going to share?" Jack speared something that looked interesting on Daniel's plate.

"I'm not hungry, take whatever you want."

"I meant the revelation," the colonel responded dryly.

Daniel pushed his plate away and raised his head slowly. "They didn't take away 'what' I am, just 'who' I am."

Jack looked at him blankly.

Sam reached across the table to lay a hand over Daniel's.

Teal'c cleared his throat

And Daniel pulled his hand out from under Sam's to put it in his lap.

"I don't get it. Your memory's gone. What's that got to do with what or who?"

"Back in my office, Jack, you asked me about books. Did I used to use a lot of reference materials to do translating?"

"Well, yeah, there were always a ton of books piled on your desk. Carter, wasn't Quinn using Daniel's books?"

"I don't need them."

Sam got it immediately.

Daniel saw the calculating look in her eyes and knew she was evaluating the evidence.

"Because . . .?" Subtlety had never been Jack's forte'.

"Danieljackson, are you saying you can now translate without your reference material?"

"So far I've had no trouble translating any of it. I can't say I've had a wide range of stuff. Some Samarian cuneiform, that Goa'uld tablet, a few pieces of pottery I'm pretty sure are early Phoenician, and a couple of texts in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Maybe they were just simple translations, I don't know. But it's pretty clear they left 'what' I was, and took away 'who' I am. I don't recognize the person in any of those pictures."

"Hey, look on the bright side - at least they left you something."

"Right, everything but my identity."

A stretched-out moment of silence descended over the table until Jack smacked a hand down. "Enough whining, this is a party! Carter, did you bring our welcome back present?"

As if out of thin air, Carter produced a small, brightly-wrapped box, completely covered by a huge bow. "Right here, sir."

"How'd it come out?"

"Great, perfectly legible."

Sam set the box in front of Daniel, who glanced around the table at his covertly grinning teammates.

"Legible?" the linguist inquired, curious what could possibly fit in a box so small and still have writing on it.

"Go on," Sam urged. "Open it."

Daniel picked it up and turned it over, causing a dull clanking sound to emit from the box. He glanced around again, not entirely trusting the amusement on the faces surrounding him.

Gingerly, he pulled apart the separately wrapped pieces of the box, reaching to catch the silver metal chain and attached dog tags that fell out.

Again, he glanced quizzically at the now openly grinning countenances.

"You should probably read them." Jack motioned to the tags.

Daniel turned one over. "My name is Dr. Daniel Jackson," he read aloud. "If found, please return me to this Gate address."

The symbols for Earth's Stargate had been minutely embossed on the metal plate. It took a few seconds to decipher the rest of the miniscule print.

"Additional reward if returned in good condition." He studied the tag silently through a long pause. "I take it this has some meaning for you that escapes me?"

For just a moment, as he looked up inquiringly, the smiling faces took on the macabre features of grinning ghouls.

It was Teal'c who offered with quiet seriousness, "We have had some difficulty keeping track of you, Danieljackson."

"Very diplomatic, Teal'c. What he's trying to say -"

"I am attempting to utter nothing other than what I expressed, O'Neill," Teal'c interrupted firmly.

"Okay, fine. What he's not saying is you were a pain in the ass to keep track of and usually when we lost you, we'd get you back in a whole lot worse shape."

"Why?"

"Why?" Jack repeated incredulously. "Because you don't follow orders, that's why! You wander off, don't pay attention to anything but what's calling you, can't keep your cotton-pickin' hands off things, and you just plain attract trouble like a universal magnet. Half the other teams refuse to even take you out with them," Jack accused, only half joking.

"That's not fair, sir. They only refused to take Daniel after you threatened bodily harm to anyone who brought him home injured," Major Carter pointed out.

"Yeah, well? He belongs to us. We need him whole. It was a reasonable . . . stipulation."

"Yes, sir, just pointing out it wasn't Daniel's fault some of the other teams didn't want to . . . play with him, sir."

O'Neill shrugged. "So, I'm a little possessive, does that make me a bad person?"

"To be honest, Daniel, we're all a little possessive," Sam admitted. "And it's likely to be worse now that you're back. SG-1 wasn't the same without you. We really missed you."

What could he say? Certainly not the standard, 'I missed you too'. He had no idea if he'd missed them or not.

Daniel was suddenly overwhelmingly tired.

"It was an inside joke," Jack offered, scooping up the dog tags. "Sorry. We probably should have thought this through a little more."

Dr. Jackson held out his hand. "How come I don't have real ones?"

Eyeing him, the colonel handed back the chain and tags. "Because you're not military. They require you to carry ID identifying you as a civilian. In fact, the Air Force probably wouldn't allow you to wear these if you wanted to."

True to character, Daniel slid them over his head with a rueful grin. It was an instinctive response that returned the smiles to his teammate's faces.

"Why?" he asked again.

"Better wear them under your t-shirt," Sam advised.

"Because the rules are different for prisoner's-of-war," Jack responded matter-of-factly. "Civilized countries don't torture identified civilians attached to the military. Of course, we haven't been at war lately with any civilized countries."

"Didn't the Geneva Convention kind of put a damper on torturing anybody?"

"Geneva Convention?" Jack inquired airily. "What's that?"

"General Hammond." Major Carter rose automatically, as did the colonel.

"At ease, SG-1."

"Grab a chair, sir; we've got plenty of room." Jack scooted his chair closer to Teal'c as they resumed their seats.

The general did, surprisingly, pull up a chair.

He rarely had the opportunity, inside the Mountain, to spend down time with his premier team. But as most of the Cheyenne Complex personnel were in the Mess at the moment, with only emergency staff manning the base, he had decided he could probably get away with adding an official welcome back without causing an international crisis among the teams.

Daniel Jackson had been much esteemed by the entire Cheyenne staff, including the Russians.

"Dr. Jackson," he stretched his arm across the table to shake hands. "I just want to say again how absolutely delighted we are to have you back."

"Thanks, General."

"Daniel was just telling us he's had an important revelation, sir." Jack steered the conversation discreetly away from their little 'inside' joke.

"Oh?" General Hammond intercepted the look Dr. Jackson shot at the colonel. "What is it, son?"

"Well, sir, it only just occurred to me as we were looking at all the pictures." Daniel made a concerted effort not to clench his teeth. "I'm an archeologist - without a past."

Even Jack got that one. The brown eyes widened, then closed briefly. "Ah, geez, Daniel, maybe it will come back."

"And maybe not," Daniel rasped softly.

Silence again descended heavily over the table.

"Sorry, I'm late. SG-9 held me up." Doctor Frasier pulled a chair up to the table too. "Hey, I thought this was a welcome home party, not a wake! What's wrong?"

Her bright, inquisitive gaze shifted briefly from person to person around the table, coming to rest on Daniel.

This time they all waited for him to answer.

"Nothing new. Just having it hammered in I don't even remember my own name."

Though Daniel forced brightness into his voice, the C.M.O. clearly heard his distress. She also saw it mirrored on the rest of the faces around the table.

"You've haven't even been back a week, Daniel," she reminded gently. "That's hardly long enough to get any coping mechanisms in place. Can you give it some time?" she asked, rather than ordered.

She was close enough to touch him, but held back, knowing he would withdraw as discreetly as he could.

Though he remained hunched over the table, Daniel did raise his eyes. "That's easier said than done."

Intellectually he understood very well what she was trying to tell him.

Just as Dr. Frasier understood that right now he was so emotionally battered, patience was a minute to minute ordeal he must try to endure. Janet made a mental note to suggest to the rest of his team their patience with Daniel needed to extend as far as they could possibly stretch it.

"Well, you know where to find me if you just need a friend to talk to."

"Thanks, Dr. Frasier." Daniel saw the quick flash of hurt in her eyes and swallowed another sigh. "Thank you, Janet," he amended, trying hard not to be frustrated with everyone's expectation of instant intimacy.

On his other side, Sam spoke up. "Give it a month and I guarantee you'll know all these people by name again, Daniel. Its part of what you are," she emphasized. "It will come naturally, you won't even have to work at it."

"That's true, son," the general chimed in, pushing back his chair. "As traumatic as this experience has been, you're back with family now. Whatever you need, we're here for you. It's what family does."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, again, sir." Daniel replied as naturally as possible, though his jaw ached with the effort to keep from gritting his teeth.

All he wanted now was the privacy of his office, or better yet, the VIP suite assigned to him. Somewhere quiet with nothing more stimulating than the CD player in the background and the backs of his eyelids to contemplate.

Not that he had any intention of sleeping.

He closed his eyes briefly and subsequently missed the speaking glance that passed between Jack and the base physician.

"Sir," Janet smiled at Daniel as she turned to the general, "do you have any objections if I order SG-1 to take the rest of the afternoon off? I think Daniel's probably had all the stimulation he needs for the day."

Jack perked up immediately. "Great idea, it's about time you get off the base. And I don't mean just for the afternoon. I think you should move back into your old room until you're ready to find your own place again. Being here 24/7 can't be good for you. Besides, if you go home with me every night, you can't be sneaking back to your office after everybody's gone."

"What?" Janet demanded. "You better not be!"

"Not to worry, Doc, this is the perfect fix."

"I'll leave you people to work this out. Dr. Jackson, you're welcome to stay on base as long as you like. Don't let the colonel badger you into anything you're not ready for. Colonel, Major, Teal'c, Doctor."

The general inclined his head briefly and left in a hurry.

"Jack," Daniel began, agitation increasing proportionate to the pressure being applied.

O'Neill raised a finger. "Aht! I can have the C.M.O. make it an order."

"As you just reminded me, I'm not military."

"Yeah, but she still has sway when it comes to medical issues on base. Hammond will make you follow her orders."

"I'm not going to make him do anything he doesn't want to, Colonel. Well," Dr. Frasier corrected herself, "at least not under these circumstances. However, I do think it would be a good idea for you to get off base, Daniel."

"Okay. So, I'm willing to give the illusion of choice." Jack leaned back in his chair, the picture of nonchalance. "I guarantee the bed's better at my house, although I do have to admit we get better satellite reception here. But, I get way more channels; most of them aren't even fuzzy. The food's far better at my place. And we can watch hockey practically all night long."

"Sounds to good to be true," Sam smiled.

"Indeed," Teal'c intoned. "It would be our pleasure to assist you in moving your belongings to O'Neill's, Danieljackson."

They all looked at him - waiting, expectant.

He thought again how difficult it was that everyone just expected instant intimacy. It wasn't that they were doing it on purpose, it was just natural for them, and so, in their minds it obviously should be natural for him, too.

Except for Daniel, it was disconcerting and uncomfortable.

What he knew about these people could fit in a thimble and if he'd ever had any internal compass to help judge character, it no longer showed true north. He did not trust his own judgment.

He had tried to explain, had used all the right words, even set it in a framework they should have been able to understand, but it had been like talking to walls. The only person who even remotely got it was Dr. Frasier.

Intellectually, he understood it was as difficult for the rest of them as it was for him, merely on opposite ends of the scale. Emotionally, it was incredibly draining to be constantly fending off their casual need to touch, and talk, and stare.

Sooner or later he was going to have to sort this out and steel himself to face the answers to questions he had only vague reasons for not wanting to ask.

In the meantime, he was positive the source of his recurring nightmare was firmly rooted right here in the SGC, probably in the infirmary. Perhaps going to Jack's would short circuit the loop, or at the very least distance him from whatever horror pursed him through these halls.

"Okay."

"Okay!" Jack repeated, grinning. "Knew you'd see it my way, I just expected it to take longer. Come on," he slid back from the table, cursing his bad knees out loud. "Let's go see about getting your stuff out of storage. And by the way, I have a lot of your personal stuff at my place too."

Janet laid a hand on Jack's arm. "Can you do it without Daniel, Colonel? I'd really like to check him out one more time before you take him off base."

"Uhhh . . . okay." Jack exchanged another look with the petite physician. "Yeah, sure, I can do that. You will let him go with us, though, right, Doc?"

"Oh, I expect so. I won't even keep him long. Come on, Daniel. I promise not to make you take your clothes off this time."

"Hey," Sam poked him with an elbow, "that's got to be a first. Janet never lets you keep your clothes on."

"I believe, Majorcarter, you are purposely agitating your pseudo-sibling. As O'Neill would say, knock it off." The Jaffa turned toward the colonel. "Do you require my assistance, O'Neill?"

"Thanks, Teal'c." Jack smirked. "As a matter of fact, no; why don't you keep Daniel company? Carter, I'm sure you have things to shut down and turn off in your lab, why don't you close up shop and we'll meet in Daniel's office in . . . what?" O'Neill turned to Janet. "You going to take longer than half an hour?"

"No. I don't expect it to take that long."

"Alrighty, then, meet back at Daniel's office no later than 14:30 hours. We can scavenge his on-base quarters, too, if there's anything he wants to take with us."

"Should we synchronize our watches, Colonel?" Carter inquired, just managing to keep a straight face.

"Absolutely," the colonel responded, checking his watch. "I have 13 . . . 45, mark."

"You're fast, sir."

"You betcha, Carter," O'Neill winked. "See you shortly."

"Janet, before you go you've got to see the poster the Linguistics Department put together."

"O'Neill, you should take this box to Danieljackson's office with you."

Teal'c swung the box up one-handed, shoving it at Jack, who just caught it – with both hands and a huff at the weight.

"What the heck did they put in here? Naquada? She doesn't have time, Carter. Besides, what's she need pictures for? She's got the real thing." O'Neill shooed everyone off. "Go, go, go! You can look at pictures later."

An hour ago, Daniel would have been resentful of Jack again assigning him a baby-sitter; however, he was glad for Teal'c's unassuming company, even if the man rarely spoke.

He'd spent more hours than he cared to remember in the infirmary on his arrival back on Earth, enduring, he was certain, every last test known to the medical community, plus a few, he was also certain, Frasier had made up on the spur of the moment.

The experience had been anything but pleasant.

He did not think it was just that, though, that had his feet dragging as they headed to the infirmary.

"So what's in the box," Janet asked, glancing at the small box Daniel was fidgeting with as the trio made their way down several elevator stops to the infirmary.

"Uhm," Daniel stalled, unsure who was allowed to be 'in' on the inside joke.

He followed Janet off the elevator, glanced back at Teal'c, and received a slight inclination of the head.

"Well, Sam, Jack and Teal'c seemed to think I needed tagging."

He stopped abruptly as an image of a relatively young, wide-eyed child formed in his mind. A child with the name 'Daniel' neatly printed in crayon on a tag hung around his neck with bright blue yarn. Someone had said the yarn matched his eyes. It had not, however, matched him up with a family.

Daniel shook his head, reaching to steady himself with a hand on the wall.

"Are you unwell, Danieljackson?" Teal'c reached to steady him too, lightly grasping his elbow.

"Daniel?" Janet turned back but did not touch him.

The archeologist shook his head again and the haunting image vanished.

"I'm okay." He pulled the tags out of his t-shirt, and over his head, handing them shyly to Janet. "This is what was in the box."

An involuntary smile lit her expressive brown eyes as she read the inscription. "So, she found someone to do it."

Janet ushered them into the infirmary, pointed Daniel to a bed, where he perched on the edge, Teal'c to a chair, where he sat back at his ease, and drew the curtainto give an illusion of privacy.

"Sam told me she was trying to find someone to do the Gate address inscription. Good job." Her smile widened as she handed them back. "Don't go away, I'll be right back. I just need a couple of things."

"Things?" Daniel repeated, frowning. "Needle kind of things?"

"We'll see," the doctor replied, disappearing around the curtain.

"So, Teal'c," Daniel began, nervously running the long chain back and forth through his fingers. "I don't know much about you. From what I've observed you live on base, alone. Jack told me he's divorced. Sam's single. What about you? Ever been married?"

Teal'c inclined his head. "I am widowed, Danieljackson, and I have a son. He is called Ry'ac."

The blue eyes widened considerably. "Oh. I had no idea. I just thought . . ."

"Because I am here, fighting with the Tau'ri, I had no family."

"Well, yes."

"You have no need to feel embarrassed, Danieljackson. It was a logical assumption."

Daniel glanced down at his fidgeting hands, then back up at Teal'c. "So, do you get to . . . uh . . . see him . . . ever? Your son, I mean."

"Not as often as I wish, but yes, I am able to visit them now. Ry'ac lives with my old teacher, Master Bra'tac. Together they are working to free more Jaffa. They do not have a permanent abode."

"Oh," Daniel said again, his gaze returning to the chain running back and forth between his fingers. "So you're a widower too?"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow, but said only, "I am."

"Did you remember that you're a widower, Daniel?" Janet slipped back inside the curtain. "Relax," she added, as his shoulders instantly tensed. "I'm just checking to see if your glands are swollen."

Her cool fingers sliding behind his ears had him tensing again.

"No," he admitted, "I read it in my file. Are you going to lecture me, too, about going into my own file?"

The hands at his throat stilled momentarily as she looked him in the eye.

"Nope. I've learned it's useless to lecture you after the fact. It just goes in one ear and out the other." Janet smiled, touching his ear lightly. "As if there was nothing in between to stop it. Have you been taking the allergy medication I gave you? Is this uncomfortable?"

She pressed lightly just under the back of his jaw again.

"It doesn't feel good." He shrugged. "You said I probably wouldn't need it in the Mountain. It made me sleepy."

"And have you had trouble with sneezing and itchy eyes?" Janet peeled back an eyelid and flashed her penlight, noting the bloodshot sclera.

"Only a little, in my office, when I stir up too much dust."

"I'll give you something else, but I want you to take it every day. If you wait until you go outside you don't build up any immunity. Trust me on this, Daniel, I know. I have to deal with this, too."

The doc held up a hand when he would have protested.

"If it makes you sleepy, we'll keep trying until we find one that doesn't. There are several allergy medications and they all have different side effects. Now, open up, I want to look at your throat. Kinda sore, huh?"

"A little," Daniel admitted reluctantly.

"Sinuses draining?"

"Some."

"Daniel!" Janet drew back, smacking his knee exasperatedly. "There's no reason for this. How long?"

He ducked his head. "Just a couple of days."

"You've barely been back a couple of days. It didn't occur to you to come and see me?"

"It crossed my mind." He looked up without raising his head. It was the patented 'Daniel' look.

It also garnered the usual smile, albeit a rueful one. That look got to her every time.

"Could have saved yourself a couple of days of feeling lousy," Dr. Frasier informed him tartly, making a diligent effort to wipe the smile from her face.

"At what cost?" Daniel asked suspiciously.

She smiled again and touched his chin. "Some pills?"

"Well, that was stupid, huh?"

"Ya think? I'm just going to take your temperature. Turn your head."

Daniel complied, flinching slightly as the thermo scan beeped in his ear.

Dr. Frasier checked it quickly and slid it back in her pocket, placing both hands on his BDU clad knees.

"You're definitely running a temp, which is to be expected since you're well on the way to a full-blown sinus infection. Some aspirin will help alleviate that general achy feeling you're probably experiencing. And I'm going to put you on antibiotics as well. I'll give you a new antihistamine, too, and I want you to take it before you leave the Mountain, okay? Today might not be such a great day to figure out if this one works better than the other, so try it for a couple of days, but don't hesitate to call or come down if it just isn't working for you. Okay?" she said again. "A response would be appropriate here, you know."

"Oh, okay," he agreed quickly. "Sorry."

"There's nothing to apologize for, unless it's ducking coming to see me. Daniel, you're going to be out of your clothes more than you are in, around me, so you'd probably better get used to the idea."

She sighed when his cheeks flushed and his eyes dropped again.

"I'm sorry, it's the nature of the beast and I know the colonel's explained to you that you have to undergo both pre and post mission exams. Now," she said briskly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Why aren't you sleeping? Are you taking the sleeping pills I gave you? Never mind, stupid question. You do realize they are supposed to make you sleepy?"

"Uhm . . . not sleeping?"

Janet touched the pad of her finger to the dark circles accentuating the blue, blue eyes.

"Oh." Daniel picked up his glasses and slid them back on his nose. "Am I supposed to feel like I'm underwater most of the day? It finally wore off just about the time I was supposed to take it again."

"How long did you take it?"

Daniel cleared his throat awkwardly. "Once," he muttered.

"Once? You took it once?"

"I couldn't concentrate."

"All right." Dr. Frasier held up both hands. "Will you at least try something else?"

"Actually, I don't like sleeping too much."

"I'm not sure I understand," she probed, her voice very gentle.

His jaw clenched involuntarily.

"Daniel, I can't help if I don't understand."

The long fingers clenched over the edge of the mattress.

Over her shoulder, Teal'c watched without expression. "I am not here to report back to O'Neill, Danieljackson. However, if you would feel more inclined to speak to Dr. Frasier without my presence, I will step outside."

Tension radiating off him, Daniel's gaze dropped to his lap again. "It's not you, Teal'c. I really don't want to talk about this right now." He squeezed his eyes shut. "I promise to try anything you give me, but I can't promise I'll keep taking it if it makes me feel funny during the day," he said to Dr. Frasier.

"Fair enough," Janet agreed, keeping a tight rein on her disappointment.

It was neither professional nor fair to Daniel to expect his complete and immediate trust.

"Just like the allergy meds, there are many different sleep aids I can give you. I will only ask you to work with me until we find something that will help you sleep. Look at me, please." She touched his chinto bring his gaze up to hers. "I want you to hear me and understand I'm not pulling punches. It's not just up to the colonel whether or not you're ready to tackle Gate travel again. If you're not up to it, either physically or mentally, I won't clear you for mission status. Gate travel is arduous and demanding, our people are all at the top of their game or they don't go out. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

Daniel nodded. "I understand."

"You're sure?"

"Positive, I got that loud and clear." He smiled tentatively. "Can I go now?"

"Just a minute, let me get you some samples. That way you can decide what works best for you and if nothing works right, we'll try something else. Deal?"

"I can live with that."

"Good, if something does work, let me know and I'll get you more. I'll be right back."

"Is she always like this?" Daniel inquired of Teal'c, sliding off the bed to pace off some of his nervous energy.

"You have a special place in her heart, Danieljackson, as you have in most hearts here at the SGC."

Daniel glanced at him over his shoulder. "Why?"

"It is, as MajorCarter said, just the way you are. The Ancients may have taken your memories, but they could not change what makes you Danieljackson. No one else has filled your spot in our hearts during your absence. No one else could."

Daniel sighed. "Why doesn't that make me feel better?"

"Because," Teal'c responded, in his impassive, yet direct, way, "you are unable as yet to comprehend with your heart what your mind is telling you. It will come in time; you must relax and let the understanding come naturally. It would be less complicated if you relinquished the fight, but I do not believe you are capable of letting go at this time."

"Of what?"

"Your fear."

Daniel sucked in air. He didn't believe fear had ever been a natural state for him.

"We will not allow anything happen to you, Danieljackson," Teal'c promised implacably.

Only trouble was, something had already happened to him. He even knew what it was, he just couldn't remember it.

Janet flipped the curtain back as she joined them again. "Here you go."

She closed his fingers around a small paper cup, then handed him a glass of water and waited until he'd swallowed the pills.

"Here's the bottom line, sport. Check in every couple of days, please, even if you find something that does work. I want to know you're taking me seriously. And Daniel?" She waited until she had his full attention again. "No screwing around with the antibiotics, you will take that, and take it as scheduled, with food. Your system tolerated it fairly well before, but if it doesn't now you can't just quit taking it and not tell me."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well at least it wasn't 'yes, Mother'." Janet rolled her eyes comically. "All right, scram. I've got work to do and you've already taken up too much of my time."

"Uhm . . . sorry."

"Stop that!" Janet commanded. "I was joking! You are my job. You and the rest of the SGC. Even Teal'c." She waved at hand at the gold-tattooed alien as he unfolded his impressive physique from the chair. "Stop apologizing for letting me do my job."

"Oh, okay."

Janet sighed and pulled the young man into an impulsive hug. "We'll get through this, I promise," she said. "All of us, working together, if you'll let us."

She felt his sigh and was relieved when he tentatively put an arm around her and lightly hugged her back.

"We will," she repeated, keeping her hands on his arms as she pulled back to look at him again.

His jaw tightened, but he met her gaze and did not draw back himself.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"It's my job, Daniel. And I'm fortunate enough to like my job a lot. You don't have to thank me."

Over his shoulder, her gaze caught the clock on the wall.

"Uh oh, Colonel O'Neill's probably on his way down here right now thinking I've decided to keep you after all. Better go, I'm sure he has big plans for this afternoon. Have a nap if he'll let you, you'll feel better for it."

Sleep in the middle of the day? He'd rather eat a raw symbiote.

"Sure," Daniel replied, fingers gripping the paper bag convulsively. "If I get a chance."

Not likely.

"Don't forget to check in," Janet called after them, heading toward her office.

"Promise," Daniel sent back over his shoulder, relieved and thankful to be done and on his way back to his office.

Without having to take his clothes off.

He did not initiate conversation on the elevator back up to eighteen where SG-1 had their offices.

Teal'c, noting the weary droop of the archeologist's shoulders, offered nothing more either. Perhaps it would be wise to remove Danieljackson to O'Neill's home and consider moving anything else another day. In the meantime, he shepherded his charge off the elevator through the maze of hallways back to sanctuary.

Both of them stopped abruptly in the open doorway.

"Well, sir, you have to admit, it is kind of cute. I mean, I doubt he meant it to be, but all the same . . ."

Sam, perched on the stool behind the counter, glanced up as O'Neill discreetly bumped her shoulder. She grimaced, seeing Daniel leaning against the doorjamb, hands jammed deeply in his pockets.

"Ya think?" O'Neill glanced back down at the sheet of paper he'd rescued from the trash and smoothed out on top of the counter.

The title of the sheet, in bold lettering, read, 'The Care & Feeding of Daniel Jackson', accompanied by a fairly well done caricature of Daniel.

"Didn't know you drew so well, Danny."

The list of instructions under the heading was impressively thorough; including feeding times, scheduled trips to the surface - don't forget the leash laws and pooper scooper - notes about caffeine intake, directions on how to pry him away from artifacts, and explicit instructions on how to get him to sleep.

Carter had looked at her C.O. in surprise; Jack had merely been amused.

"How'd you get in here?"

The colonel raised an eyebrow. "My card opens all the doors on base, it's one of the perks of being Hammond's 2IC."

"What the hell is a two eye see?"

"Think numbers and letters. 2-I-C. Second-in-command? And you need to stop swearing. It doesn't sound right coming out of your mouth."

"You're second-in-command of this base?" Daniel inquired, almost surprised out of his mad.

"Yeah. When we're off-world, Carter's my 2IC."

"Oh."

It took a moment to process that information.

"So, then, Sam has access to my office as well?"

"Not unless I give it to her; however, we don't work like that around here. We don't keep secrets from each other."

"With all due respect, that's not exactly true, sir." Sam put in, glad the colonel was still standing behind her.

"Oh, for crying out loud, Carter. It was one mission and I only did it because the damned Tollan and the Asgard demanded I be involved and you know it. Plus it was years ago! Are you ever going to let me live that down?"

"Not likely, sir."

"Before we get too sidetracked . . ." Daniel pushed off the doorjamb and crossed the office to pick up the sheet of paper Jack and Sam had been studying. "I'd just like to say I'm really pissed. Right at the moment, I don't care what happened last year, or the year before, or the year before that." He made a concerted effort to keep his voice even, though his jaw clenched reflexively. "You knew damn well I didn't want you reading that stupid piece of paper, Jack."

Daniel crushed the sheet again and threw it at the trash can. It bounced off the wall, hit the rim, and rolled halfway around the top of the basket before sliding down inside.

"Nice shot," Jack said admiringly. "So," he looked up and across at Daniel's furrowed brow and tight jaw, "now that we have, want to talk about it?" he asked unrepentantly.

Daniel just looked at him.

"I take it that's a no." Jack cracked his neck. "Are we ready to go then? Oh, by the way, Systems Engineering says they'll have your stuff back up here by the time we get intomorrow morning. If you want them to unpack, we need to give them a call this afternoon. Anything you want to take home out of here?"

Daniel closed his eyes, trying to find humor in the situation.

The brief foray into darkness had the counter fetching up hard against his suddenly outthrust hands. He felt Teal'c step up behind him, but the Jaffa did nothing more than take up a stance at his right shoulder again.

Anger was ineffective and pointless. It rolled of his teammates like rain off a slicker.

He'd been incredibly frustrated, and having no one to talk to about it, had comically poured out his frustration on the several pieces of paper now residing in his trash can.

"We'll be back tomorrow morning?" He shook off the brief dizzy spell and inventoried the sum total of his earthly possessions.

"Yeah, sure," O'Neill responded.

"If I empty out my pockets, can I get away without being strip searched?" Daniel shoved a couple of books into his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, glancing around to make sure he needed nothing else.

"Daniel?" Do we need to get this out in the open now?

"Jack!" I'm seriously pissed!

A muscle jumped in Daniel's jaw as they stared at each other.

"Daniel." Now everybody else knows you're pissed, too.

"Jack." And your point is?

"I understand you're angry, and I understand why. I'm sorry." Most of all I'm sorry I broke your trust, which I probably just did in a big way, huh?

The glare didn't lessen by one iota.

"What do you want to do?" Jack inquired with more patience than he'd ever considered himself capable of.

"Oh, let's just go," Daniel huffed.

"Well, then, kids, what are we waiting for?" The colonel clapped his hands. "Normally we don't leave base in BDUs; however, we don't have much choice but to take you in what you're wearing."

Jack had noted Daniel's questioning glance at their civilian clothes.

Even Teal'c had detoured and changed out of fatigues into slacks and a causal t-shirt, along with his standard head gear - a straw cowboy hat, today.

"Why?"

"We have so got to expand your vocabulary again. You need to remember you're a linguist too. 'Why' is not the only word you know, Daniel." Jack snagged the linguist's jacket sleeve and towed him out of the office.

"We change," Sam explained, looking cool and sexy in a white sun dress, "because we try not to draw any more attention to ourselves than necessary. The public thinks we're civilians doing deep space telemetry here. Is there anything you want from your quarters?"

"No."

He was pretty sure Sam was going to attract all kinds of attention the moment she stepped out of his office, let alone off the base.

"You're sure?" Sam asked. "We're not in any hurry, despite the colonel's impatience."

"We've got places to go, Carter, people to see, things to do!" O'Neill hustled them all toward the door. "Okay, maybe not people to see, but we've got places to go and things to do, so, let's get on it."

"Sir, maybe Daniel wants to get his toothbrush and jammies if he's sleeping over."

"I got all that junk at home, Carter, he doesn't need to bring that kind of stuff."

"Danieljackson? Do you wish to take this box of . . ." Teal'c inclined his head to look down in the box of envelopes. "Rectangular squares of paper to O'Neill's with you?"

"No, he doesn't." Jack twitched impatiently and strode ahead to the elevator, still towing Daniel.

"Danieljackson?"

"It's fine. Thanks, though, Teal'c, for asking."

"Are we in a hurry, O'Neill?"

"Yes." The colonel swiped his card through the reader to call the elevator.

"Why?"

"Because it's time to be out of this place. Daniel hasn't seen the light of day in almost a week. He's beginning to look like a plant in need of sunlight."

"I am?"

"Trust me, you are. Come on, come on!"

…..

"Daniel?" Jack switched off the ignition. "Hey, we're home."

He glanced in the rearview mirror in time to see Teal'c unfolding himself from the driver's seat of Carter's sleek little foreign number. He was going to have to get after her again about letting their alien teammate drive without a license.

"Carter's about to open your door and you're going to fall out. Okay, maybe not since you've still got your seatbelt on." He poked the unresponsive civilian. "Come on, D.J., it's time to wake up."

Jack leaned across the seat and slid a hand inside the back of Daniel's jacket, squeezing lightly. It was an old habit he'd employed often in the past to get and keep the archeologist's wandering attention. He spared a moment to hope his teammate would forgive him for falling back into his old familiar patterns of behavior.

The eyes snapped open, and not unexpectedly, Daniel jerked back.

"Hey, we're home. It's unusual for you to fall asleep two minutes out of the mountain. You okay?"

The archeologist blinked, stared at Jack disoriented, then blinked again.

"Sunshine."

"What?"

It had been days since he'd seen sunlight; he'd closed his eyes against the dazzling brightness even before he'd gotten his seatbelt buckled. Apparently he hadn't managed to get them open again.

"Sun's bright," Daniel said, blinking owlishly. "What happened?"

Jack tilted his head inquiringly. "You fell asleep?"

"I wasn't asleep."

"Yeah, and I didn't just wake you up."

Jack released him, and like a wild thing, Daniel edged backwards, snagged this time by the seatbelt.

"Anything I should know? Frasier give you something before we left?"

"Antihistamines. She made me take it before I left the infirmary. And antibiotics."

"Well, that could explain your falling asleep, I suppose. What did she put you on antibiotics for?"

O'Neill pressed the seatbelt release before the kid could strangle himself.

"Sinus infection."

"Oh. So you aren't feeling too peachy right about now."

"I told you I wasn't several hours ago in my office, before you dragged me off to lunch."

"Yeah, you did." Jack opened his door and slid out. "So maybe you should go straight to bed."

Sam opened the door behind Daniel, only just stopping him from falling out by splaying a hand in the middle of his back.

"Sorry, I didn't realize you were leaning on it. You okay? Daniel?"

"Do you need assistance, Danieljackson?" Teal'c inquired as the archeologist slid out and reached to haul his backpack off the floor.

"Yes, I'm okay, Sam. No, I don't need assistance, Teal'c. Can you guys just back off!" He stepped back from the truck, away from Teal'c and Sam. "I just need a little space . . . please."

"Daniel?"

"Jack." Daniel took another step backwards.

"Okay - what kind of space?" Jack asked, forcing the words out against his will. He didn't want to give the kid space, didn't really want to let him out of his sight. "Go lie down in your room kind of space, or take a walk in the woods kind of space?"

"Woods?"

Where the hell had those words come from?

"Yeah, well, you won't remember, but the house backs up on a nature preserve. There are a couple of trails, one that loops around beginning and ending in my back yard. We used to run there, it might be familiar to you. It's easy to follow, you can't get lost, and you're plenty safe by yourself out there." Jack made an easy gesture, flicking a hand toward the back of the house, though any moment he was going to hyperventilate. "If you want, one of us can go with you," he offered.

"No, thanks."

The still half asleep linguist blinked at him again and Jack sucked up his immediate need to countermand the offer he'd just made and order Daniel inside to bed where he could at least keep an eye on him.

"Around the side of the house, it's only fifty yards to the woods, you can't miss the path. Give me your backpack; I'll leave it in your room."

Daniel slid the backpack off his shoulder and took a step forward.

Teal'c, with his long reach, snagged it. "I will see that it gets to your room, Danieljackson."

"Sure you don't want company?" Sam touched his shoulder as Daniel half turned toward the back of the house.

"I believe Danieljackson would like some time alone," Teal'c asserted. He raised his eyes to the archeologist's plainly relieved face. "You must believe we desire only to help you, Danieljackson, but we cannot always judge correctly what it is you need from us. You cannot hurt our feelings if you help us to understand what that is," he paused, "however, you must also understand we are all concerned Oma Desala will have realized the gravity of her error in allowing you to descend and will appropriate you again when we are least expecting it. It is therefore difficult for us to willingly allow you to leave our range of vision."

O'Neill's disconcerted gaze flew from Teal'c, to Daniel, to Carter and back to Teal'c. "How'd you know?"

"I have the same concern, O'Neill, as I have just stated," Teal'c replied calmly.

"Carter?"

"Yes, sir, I've been worried about that, too."

"You have?"

"Of course, sir. Daniel probably is, too, one way or another. Only, it occurs to me, sir, if it was a mistake, why did they erase his memory?"

"Maybe they didn't erase it, Carter, maybe it was just a side effect of his descending."

"It's possible reacquiring a corporeal body caused the trauma, but I doubt it. Do you remember Orlin, the alien who built a Stargate in my basement? I'd forgotten all about him, until . . . well, until we found Daniel again."

O'Neill grimaced. "As I recall, Major, your little romance ended when he did the glowy octopus thing again."

"Yes, well," Carter admitted, "he did. But only because he died to save us from blowing ourselves up with that device."

"So, you're saying he was readmitted to the Glowing Octopi, but only because he died again?"

"I believe so, sir."

"Then your assumption would be that if Daniel dies again, and we're not counting the times he died before he ascended, right? If he dies again, irrevocably, he'll be readmitted to the Glowing Octopi too, but until then, we get to keep him."

"Uhm, yes, sir, that's pretty much it."

"Daniel?" O'Neill turned to the only team member who hadn't contributed to the discussion. "Can I trust her assumption?"

Daniel shrugged. "Haven't got a clue. Can I go now?"

"Are you worried they're going to come looking for you?" O'Neill snapped, pinning the archeologist in place with a look.

"Probably not in the way you mean, but - yes."

The pre-ascended Daniel would have wilted under O'Neill's livid glare.

"Do you want to go back?"

"I don't know." The post-descended Daniel just looked back at him.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I'm not playing games, Jack. I don't know if I want to go back. Since I don't have any memory of what I left either here or there, how can I possibly know what I want?"

Instead of wrapping his arms around himself, Daniel shoved his hands in his pockets.

O'Neill closed his eyes briefly. "All right, since we're on the subject, I've had a lot of time to think about what I said to you last time we were in this place. This time I'm going to say what I didn't get out before." He locked gazes with the younger man. "Don't go. If they invite you back, just say no, okay? Losing you was like losing Charlie all over again. If you want the honest truth, it was worse than losing Sarah. Now, how twisted is that? So, just in case you were thinking I'm not glad you're back, think again."

Jack turned abruptly and strode toward the house, shoving his key in the lock with barely suppressed violence. He disappeared inside, leaving the door standing open behind him.

Sam turned to stare after her usually taciturn C.O.

"Wow!" she breathed quietly, turning back to Daniel, who was also staring, somewhat bewilderedly, after the colonel. "That probably came out of nowhere for you, so just so you know," she touched his arm, bringing the confused blue eyes back to meet her own wide blue eyes. "Charlie was his eleven-year-old son. He accidentally shot himself with the colonel's gun. Sarah is his ex-wife. And no, there was nothing more going on between you and the colonel than there was between you and me. You were just . . . best friends." Sam sighed. "Except, you were more than best friends. It's hard to explain - I think you were his conscience, Daniel. And for awhile, I think the colonel might have been your sanity . . . after . . . well, after Sha're. It cost him a lot to say that in front of Teal'c and me, he won't be easy to live with for the rest of the day. He never is when he lets his emotions break through like that in company."

"Indeed," was Teal'c's only contribution.

"Look, I'm sure this has only increased your need to get away from all this for awhile." Sam smiled, she hoped reassuringly. "So, go on."

"You don't mind?"

"Of course not. Like Teal'c just said, if you help us understand what you need from us, you can't possibly hurt our feelings."

Sam and Teal'c exchanged another glance as Daniel turned, without a word, and trudged out of view around the side of the house.

"After you, Majorcarter." Teal'c stepped back, bowing his head gravely.

Sam sighed and led the way into the house.

…..

Preparations for supper were well under way when the Jaffa, looking up from his spot at the grill, spotted the archeologist coming out of the woods.

"Danieljackson returns," he murmured.

"Wow," Sam said softly, shooting a quick glance at their C.O. "I hadn't realized quite how tense he was."

"Yeah," was O'Neill's only response.

"Obviously Danieljackson found something in the woods that was good for him," Teal'c rumbled, returning his attention to the steaks on the grill.

"Hey. What can I do to help?" Daniel came up the shallow steps two at a time.

His gaze went immediately to Jack, leaning against the deck railing, beer in hand, watching him.

"Thanks," he offered quietly.

Jack merely inclined his head in a manner reminiscent of Teal'c and took a long swallow of imported beer.

Sam thrust the plates and utensils into his hands. "Set the table," she grinned. "Feel better?"

"Yes," Daniel acknowledged, grinning back.

The dazed, anxious look so evident on their arrival was completely erased.

"Thank you."

The tension in his shoulders appeared to have dissolved as well. It was the most relaxed they'd seen him since . . . well, since they'd found him on Vis Uban.

O'Neill forced back a sigh of relief and rolled his own shoulders in an effort to release some of his tension.

"How're the steaks coming, T?"

"They are almost done, O'Neill."

"Good, I'll get the salad."

"Well, somewhere in there, Daniel -" Sam tapped Daniel's temple playfully, then couldn't help herself and brushed her fingers through his hair. "You still think of us as family." She grinned engagingly.

"I do?" Daniel set the last plate on the table and placed cutlery on either side of it.

Jack set the salad down on the linen clad picnic table.

"I remember you telling me once your mother taught you how to set the table properly," Sam related, collecting the baked potatoes. "But you'd argued it was ridiculous to put the forks on the left when most people used their right hand to eat, so why didn't forks get put on the right. You said she always let you put the forks on the right, unless there was company and then you had to set it properly. See you put the forks on the right, you must still think of us as family," she repeated, knowing she was pleased all out of proportion.

An arrested expression stilled the mobile features. Still poised over the last plate, Daniel let the memory of darkly tanned fingers sliding lovingly from his elbows to his wrists, wash over him.

It was so strong he could smell the scent of his mother's hair, feel it brushing against his cheek as she bent over him, saying with a smile in her voice, 'Not tonight, sweetie, we have company. You have to set it properly.'

He sank down on the picnic bench bonelessly. Eight. He'd been eight when he'd lost his parents and been tossed willynilly into the foster care system. Eight.

Immediately Sam was behind him, hands on his shoulders, massaging gently.

"I'm sorry." She cringed. "I didn't think."

"No, it's okay. It just was . . . unexpected. Guess I should probably get used to it, though, huh?" Daniel squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, took a deep breath, and raised his head. "Are we ready to eat?"

Tonight he wanted to hold on to the peace he'd found in the woods, if only for a few hours. He had finally managed to clear his head enough to recognize that somewhere buried way down deep inside there was a thread of trust that ran so deep he didn't need to question it.

As Teal'c had firmly stated, they would not let anything happen to him.

The realistic, rational Dr. Jackson had tacked on, if it was within their power.

Instinct told him a lot of power resided in this trio of individuals.

He didn't miss the significance of the look that flashed among his three companions, but this time it didn't bother him.

"I'm starved," Daniel announced. "What are we waiting for?"

The relaxed atmosphere fostered by good wine, great food, and easy camaraderie, took its toll far more quickly than any of them would have thought possible.

The sun had barely slipped below the horizon before the archeologist was falling asleep again.

"I swear, give Daniel more than two ounces of alcohol and he's under the table." Sam swatted him good-naturedly. "Why don't you just go to bed?"

"Might miss something," Daniel yawned. "Besides, it's going to be a great night for stargazing. Do you still have the telescope on the roof, Jack? I looked up Abydos on the star map in the board room; I want to see if I can find it for real."

Three sets of gazes swiveled toward him in the gloaming.

"What?" The hairs on the back of his neck rose as apprehension mounted swiftly. "What?" he repeated harshly.

"You remembered I have a telescope," Jack replied, injecting a note of pleased satisfaction Daniel obviously wasn't buying.

Sam, still sitting next to him, felt Daniel tense like a drawn bow string.

"What happened to Abydos?"

"Well, we don't know for sure," she began, wanting desperately to restore the tranquil calm just shattered so badly.

"Anubis destroyed Abydos, Danieljackson," Teal'c stated calmly, though his jaw clenched as he closed his mouth on the damning sentence.

Daniel was on his feet before he knew it, alarmingly light-headed. Probably the wine, he thought inconsequentially, trying desperately to get his feet untangled and over the bench.

He was going to be sick.

"Daniel?"

"Don't touch me," he snarled, as Jack snared his arm.

Daniel stumbled down the stairs and out into the yard, sank to his knees, and threw up until there was nothing left to throw up.

When he finally sat back on his heels, Sam, kneeling beside him, handed him a damp kitchen towel.

Daniel buried his face in it.

"Okay?" she asked, chancing a quick shoulder rub. "Want some water to rinse your mouth?"

Water wasn't going to rinse the sour taste of guilt from his soul.

"I guess," he said dully, wondering why he was absolutely certain Abydos had been destroyed because of his actions.

Sam brought back a glass of water and steadied it when his hand trembled so badly he spilled it.

"Come back and sit down."

He let her pull him to his feet and lead him back to the deck, but sank down on the steps instead of returning to the picnic table. Daniel wrapped his arms around his ankles and put his head down on his knees.

"It happened after you helped us find the Eye of Ra on Abydos. We also found a tablet. Have you seen it since you came back?" Sam sat down beside him and tentatively laid a hand on his back. "Daniel?"

The archeologist shook his head wearily.

"You told us to give Anubis the Eye of Ra to distract him from the tablet because you thought it held the key to the Lost City. If Anubis found the Lost City before we did, Earth would be in big trouble."

"And with the Eye of Ra, he commanded enough power to destroy Abydos," Daniel said flatly.

"Do you remember?"

"No," he said again, raising a hand to press to his temple. "If you collect all the Eyes, legend says they combine to form a powerful weapon that can be used at will by the person, or being, that holds the Eyes."

"You knew that. You told us that on Abydos, when you told us to give the damn thing to him," Jack interjected.

Daniel groaned. "Destroyed. An entire planet . . . what the hell was I thinking."

His stomach heaved again.

"The people were not destroyed, Danieljackson. Oma Desala ascended them," Teal'c offered into the gathering darkness.

"We talked to them." Sam continued to rub his back, thankful he hadn't pulled away. "Oma let us gate back to the planet, or where ever it was they were, very briefly. When we got home, we couldn't dial out to Abydos again. But we talked to Skaara. They're . . . alive and well . . . in another dimension, I suppose."

"When . . . when did this happen?"

For a moment no one answered.

Jack downed the rest of his beer and plunked the bottle down on the picnic table. "Two months ago."

Enlightenment dawned. Daniel turned his head slowly to look at Sam. "So, that's why you think they kicked me out. But there's more . . . isn't there?"

"You told us you were going to confront Anubis." Sam curved a hand protectively around the back of Daniel's neck, much like Jack. "We have no idea what happened, only that Abydos was destroyed and you didn't come back." She sighed heavily. "And then we found you, quite accidentally we thought. But the more I think about it, the more I'm sure Oma meant for us to find you."

Night insects were beginning to fill the creeping silence with their melodic evening symphony. Doomed moths fluttered past his face on their mesmerized way toward the candle flames dancing on the picnic table. Behind him, Teal'c slapped an inquisitive mosquito.

"Are you cold?" Sam moved her hand to rub his bare arm.

He was shivering convulsively.

"No," he said flatly.

A moment later, a field jacket was draped over his shoulders.

Daniel closed his eyes. He was hot and cold at the same time, dizzy with fatigue again, and still nauseated with the knowledge of what he had caused.

Jack sat down on his other side.

"Ya know," he began conversationally. "We could play the 'what if' game forever on this one. In the end it still comes down to the same thing. You win some, you lose some. We didn't win this time, but the outcome could have been a lot worse."

"A lot worse? An entire race was annihilated because I made a bad choice?" Daniel groaned, burying his face in an elbow again.

O'Neill toned down the caviler facade. "First of all, no one was annihilated. Second, who knows if it was a bad choice or not? Suppose instead of playing Jackals and Hounds with you while we got away with the tablet, His Royal Ascended Self had turned his attention to us and gotten the tablet after all? Somehow, I doubt anyone in the universe would be safe if that thing had ended up in his possession. And third -" Jack's jaw clenched for a moment before he went on. "Third, maybe if I hadn't been such a hardass about crossing the line, you could have come up with a different solution. But we didn't have a whole honkin' lot of time, Daniel. So, I pushed you to make a choice and it had some unfortunate consequences, but we don't know that it was the wrong choice. It could have been the only choice given the circumstances. And frankly, unless Oma decides to drop in again -" O'Neill glanced warily up at the sky. "And by the way, just in case you're listening, that wasn't an invitation. We may never know if there was another choice. Now," he rose and dusted off the seat of his pants, "me and Teal'c are going inside to watch the game. You two coming?"

"Not yet." Daniel did straighten, propping his elbows wearily on his knees and his head in his hands.

Sam snuggled closer to Daniel. "Mind if I stay out here with you for awhile?"

She felt him shrug and decided to take it as confirmation she was allowed to stay. Twitching at the jacket, she slipped both hands around his arm and laid her head down on his shoulder.

"I missed this," she murmured. "Just sitting still together, without an agenda; I missed pulling all nighters with you; bouncing ideas off you . . . I just missed you, Daniel."

Somehow, here under the open sky, the intimacy seemed less disconcerting, or perhaps it was just the timing. Daniel leaned his cheek against her hair, breathing in the scent of her. He understood an answer wasn't required, and, he thought, if he could remember sitting like this with her, very likely he would miss it, too.

"Did you know Sha're?" he asked eventually, breaking the comfortable silence.

"Not really. I met her, but only very briefly."

"I asked Jack about her last night." Daniel waited a beat before adding, "So, then, was she killed on Abydos? Jack said she'd been killed in a mission that went bad."

Damn the colonel for not warning her. No wonder Daniel had been so upset by the news of Abydos; not that he wouldn't have been anyway. This just shed a whole new light on his reaction.

"No, Sha're has been dead for a few years now."

Sam hoped, without expectation, he'd be satisfied. And then wondered if it would be kinder to tell him now, so he had some warning if and when the memory did catch up with him.

She unconsciously began to rub his arm again. "This afternoon, at lunch, when you were holding the bowl? You said Sha're's name. Tell me what you remembered."

"Just a girl . . . beautiful . . . long, dark, kind of floaty hair. She was throwing her arms around me . . . laughing." Daniel's voice broke. He drew in a long, deep breath before adding, "She was so . . . young."

"That was a long time ago, Daniel. You were both young."

"I was never young, Sam, at least not like that."

His sigh was so weary she thought it must emanate from the very depths of his soul.

"It occurred to me that it fit Jack's criteria, you know? A mission gone really bad. What could be worse than annihilating an entire population?"

"Trust me, what happened to Sha're was much worse than what happened to Abydos."

"I can't imagine anything worse," he said dully. "Unless I killed her."

"You didn't. Teal'c did."

"Oh, God! Never mind, I don't want to know!"

"Too late, I won't leave Teal'c hanging out like that. Sha're was taken by the Goa'uld, Apophis, as a host for his queen, Ammonet. She bore him a harcesis child; a human baby, born with the entire genetic memory of the Goa'uld. The Goa'uld hunt down and annihilate such children because of the threat they pose. Ammonet, we think influenced by Sha're, returned to Abydos and took the Abydonians hostage as a cover for sending the child to Kheb in an effort to save him. General Hammond immediately sent an entire battalion to mount a rescue operation when your father-in-law got word to us. You went straight for Sha're and by the time Teal'c got to the tent, Ammonet already had you in the ribbon device. What you need to understand is Teal'c didn't choose between you and Sha're. In that split second, he had to choose you, or Ammonet."

Daniel lowered his forehead back down to his knees. "Jesus," was all he said, and it was as much a prayer as a curse.

There were holes big enough to drive a tank through, but he'd heard too much already. Was there no end to the tragedy in his life? Surely he hadn't wanted to come back to this?

"You also need to understand Teal'c was as devastated as you were," Sam added with quiet conviction.

At the moment, Teal'c was the least of his worries. His own culpability was glaringly obvious.

'You never pay attention to anything but what's calling you!'

He could recapture the fleeting feeling of strength and bright promise that had accompanied the picture of Sha're in his mind earlier in the day.

'You never pay attention to anything but what's calling you', Jack's uncensored assessment from earlier in the afternoon, replaying now on an endless loop, came back to haunt him. 'You went straight to Sha're'.

Daniel, very deliberately and purposefully, shut down. He drifted blankly in the dark, anchored only by Sam's warm hands grounding him to the earth, to the steps of the deck, to this life he had been tossed back into in much the same way he'd been tossed into the foster care system some thirty-odd years ago. The universe had decreed it.

This time around, Jack seemed to think he was guilty of collusion, at the very least; if not out right complicity. Was an eight-year-old child capable of collusion or complicity?

"Daniel?"

Startled, Daniel straightened again, shaking his head. "Sorry, must have zoned there for awhile."

"You're entitled." Sam trailed off for a moment. "Look, I know you said you don't want to talk about that . . . paper . . . from this afternoon."

When he neither tensed, nor withdrew, she soldiered on.

"If you still don't, I'll respect that. But there were a couple of things that have me a little worried."

"What?" Daniel turned his head toward her.

"There was just enough of an edge in that bit about . . . sleeping -"

Sam felt him flinch and knew absolutely he was going to pull back any second now.

"I told you earlier there's nothing going on between you and the colonel . . ." she trailed off again, not exactly sure how to continue.

"I haven't lost the ability to remember, just my memory. I know what you said," Daniel replied, just short of curtly.

Major Carter sighed. "What's really bothering you about it? Are you worried that you're attracted to him?"

When he didn't immediately answer, she continued softly. "You are both thoroughly heterosexual men. You've both been married, although I think you're both a little gun shy, given the experiences you've endured with some of the galactic bitches we've encountered."

"Galactic bitches?" Daniel inquired, leaning back on his hands.

"Let's see." Sam leaned back as well. "There was Hathor; she did both you and the colonel. We killed her. We've tangled with Nirti, she did a number on Teal'c, though strictly speaking it wasn't sexual. Then there was Shyla; but the colonel says she was more of a sex kitten than a bitch goddess. Oh, yes, let's not forget Kira/Linea. And I'm sure I could come up with some more if you really want me to."

"Uh, thanks, but it's not necessary. Would it be really conceited of me to assume where no names are mentioned, I insert mine?"

"Well, you do have a way with the feminine heart. And stop rolling your eyes; you've always been clueless when it comes to how attractive you are."

"Ohyeahsureyoubetcha."

"Channeling O'Neill does not get you points." Sam poked her companion playfully in the ribs. "So, I'm going to ask you again, are you attracted to the colonel?"

Daniel sighed. "There is something phenomenally attractive about Jack, something that calls to me on very visceral level . . . but it's not sexual. At least, he doesn't turn me on," he amended. "So, I don't think it's sexual."

Well, that was certainly an honest assessment, if more than she'd expected. Obviously Daniel had thought it through already.

"Has it occurred to you that he makes you feel safe? If I were in your shoes, I know that would be very important to me."

"Yes," Daniel replied slowly. "I don't think I would have come back with you otherwise. But it's more than just feeling safe. It's almost . . ." he trailed off, then started on a different tack. "You ever make one of those tin can telephones with a waxed string when you were a kid?"

"Sure. Why?" Sam took the left turn in stride, knowing Daniel would have a reason for asking the seemingly out of the blue question.

"It's almost like Jack and I are connected by that wax string. You know? Like there's a level of communication deeper than just you and I talking like this."

"Oh, yes, the two of you used to carry on whole conversations and never say more than each other's names."

"Really? I'm not just imagining it?"

"No," Sam smiled, "you're not imagining it. Sometimes it hardly takes more than a look between the two of you."

"Well, that makes me feel better."

The silence between them grew comfortable again.

"Sam?"

"Hmm?"

"Anubis . . ."

"What about him?" she prompted when the silence lengthened unnaturally.

"Jack said something about his Royal Ascended Self?"

"You told us Anubis had somehow managed to ascend by gaining knowledge of the Ancients. Even though he is a Goa'uld."

Startled, Daniel jerked his gaze down from the stars to stare at Sam in disbelief. "Ascended? A Goa'uld?"

"Yes. So, not only did he have the Eyes he'd collected, he had access to at least some of the knowledge, and I would have to assume, some of the power of the Ancients as well. I'm guessing since he didn't ascend in the usual manner, which we're assuming is sort of a mentor type relationship since you told the colonel Oma saw it as your duty to help others ascend, he may not be subject to the same kinds of rules you were."

"But I knew that, right?"

"Yes."

"Am I usually stupid and impulsive?"

"Given the fact your IQ is off the scale, I don't think anyone could accuse you of being stupid," Sam said matter-of-factly. "Impulsive? Certainly the colonel would say you were impulsive. You don't tend to be analytical when you're in explorer mode, which often lands you in trouble. You just have this enormous capacity for trust, which none of us understand, especially given the way life has knocked you around. So you fearlessly wander into situations any sane person would avoid to begin with, or at the very least, go into armed to the teeth."

"Sounds pretty stupid to me," Daniel drawled.

"No." Sam shook her head vehemently. "No," she repeated, "not even really impulsive. More like . . . guileless."

"As in naive?"

"No," she said again. "Naive implies a lack of understanding, and that's not the case at all. It's not that you don't understand evil, it's just that you don't automatically expect every sentient being to be evil."

"But Jack does?"

"Well, not exactly. His perspective is just . . . different. He doesn't necessarily expect it, but he's always analyzing, always on guard, just in case. Opposite ends of the scale. But that doesn't make either of you wrong."

"Why do I get the feeling you're the only one who thinks that way?"

"Not true. Teal'c feels exactly the same way, and I know because we've talked about it."

"Teal'c talks?"

"That's not funny." Sam poked him again, less playfully, but without malice. "Of course Teal'c talks. He feels things a lot more deeply than he ever allows to show. It's that Jaffa thing he's got going. Teal'c is one of your biggest advocates, Danieljackson." She chuckled. "And I don't mean that literally, although he does consider himself your personal bodyguard as well. All joking aside, even the colonel understands neither of you are wrong - just different. I'll admit he was often frustrated and impatient with you, but it was usually because you'd wandered in where angels fear to tread - so to speak. Guess it's kind of appropriate now, huh?"

She laughed softly, knowing Daniel was rolling his eyes again.

"Okay, given that I knew all that, I still went after Anubis? How wasn't that just plain stupid?"

Sam shook her heard. "If you hadn't, we would have all been dead."

"You don't know that."

"I'm as confident as it's possible to be without cold hard facts. All the data suggests that would have been the outcome. And maybe not just us. The colonel wasn't joking when he said maybe the entire universe as we know it."

Her words were all the more effective for the quiet, assured delivery. If she'd been passionate and fiery, he would have suspected rhetoric. Daniel sighed again, thinking about the tablet and the heartache it had caused.

"When Jonas isn't working on it, we keep the tablet locked in one of the safes. I can get it for you tomorrow."

Daniel pulled back, just a little, to look at his companion. "Okay. That was weird."

"What? That I knew what you were thinking?" Sam grinned. "Did you think it only worked between you and the colonel?"

"Well," he faltered. "Yes, actually. We can do it, too?"

"To a certain extent, we all share the ability. Perhaps not to the level you and the colonel have achieved, but, yes, absolutely, you and I share that ability as well."

"You mean - all of SG-1? Teal'c as well?"

"Didn't he read you pretty well this afternoon?"

"Well, yes . . . but . . ."

"But . . . what?"

It had seemed to Sam, the connection previously forged between the members of SG-1 had, with Daniel's return, become almost a living thing. She knew both she and Teal'c had experienced the fright and disorientation of Daniel's nightmares. Clearly, since the colonel had been sleeping on base for the last three nights, he was experiencing it as well.

"Nothing. Just surprised. But that seems to be SOP now. In the woods this afternoon . . . I guess I found the place I needed to go to trust again. It's been . . . elusive."

"That's not especially surprising. Life has never been easy for you."

"So, maybe it's not such a bad thing - this not remembering."

"Knowing you, you won't be able to leave it alone until you've remembered it all."

"See, there it is again. You said I wasn't stupid. Given what I've read in my file, why would I even want to remember? It sure sounds stupid to me."

"Unfortunately, I don't believe you have it in you to just shrug off the past and look at this as a new beginning. You said it this afternoon. An archeologist . . . without a past? How can you not dig until you've found it all again?"

"Why can't I be satisfied being a linguist?"

"Don't forget Egyptologist, Doctor Jackson. And, I don't know, maybe because that's not the way you were built?"

"Faulty design then."

"Uhmm," Sam snuggled her cheek against his shoulder again. "I kind of like you just the way you are."

He said nothing more, though she felt the soft exhalation of his breath in another sigh. She clasped her arms loosely around his waist in a gentle, non-threatening hug, and felt his arms come naturally around her shoulders.

"It's so good to feel you as flesh and blood again. I missed you so much!" This time there was both fire and passion in her voice.

Daniel was very aware it was not rhetoric.

After awhile Sam straightened up. "Ready to go in?"

"No, I'm going to stay out a little longer. Are you a hockey fan?"

"Not so much." She rose. "But, you know, hanging around the colonel, some of it's bound to rub off on us. I keep up with the standings so I at least know what he's talking about. No, I think I'm going home."

Daniel's nightmares were depriving them of all of sleep and she was tired, not that she planned to share that with him. She bent and hugged him fiercely, dropping a kiss on the top of his head.

"Okay?"

"Of course you can go home."

"Brat. Not what I meant and you know it."

His head dipped in acknowledgment. "Well, if you guys have anything to say about it . . . I will be . . . eventually . . . I suppose."

"Damn straight." Sam grinned. "I hope – eventually - you'll want it just as much as we do."

"Oh, I imagine – eventually - I will."

She laughed outright. "Oh, Daniel, I do love you so!"

"Back at you, kiddo." He turned, smiling up at her. "Thanks."

"No thanks necessary, but you're entirely welcome. Try to get some sleep, will you?"

He offered a perfect salute. "Absolutely, Major-Doctor, sir."

"It's probably a really good thing you're not military. Good night, Daniel."

"Nite, Sam."

Daniel planted his elbows on the step behind him and turned his gaze back up to the stars. He had no desire to go up to the roof now, but neither did he want to go in and watch a boring hockey game.

A shooting star flashed across the dark sky, blazing a wide trail behind it for several seconds before burning out as it hit Earth's atmosphere.

He leaned back and let the night settle around him, drinking in the peace and quiet.

His circadian rhythms were out of whack, probably as much due to his unwillingness to give into sleep as the artificial environment of the Mountain where there was no night. But it was nice to feel drowsiness creeping up on him.

The steps were just uncomfortable enough to keep him on the edge of wakefulness, without being so uncomfortable he wanted to move. He let his eyelids droop closed and sat still . . . waiting . . . though he had no idea what for.

A resounding thump behind him jerked him back to awareness some time later. A rolled-up sleeping bag knocked him sideways since he was unprepared for the attack. Reflexively he grabbed it before it fell to the ground.

"Jack?"

"Thought you might like to try sleeping outdoors tonight."

"Okay . . ." Daniel rose and tossed the sleeping bag back down on the deck. "Who won?"

"We did. For a change."

"Who's we?"

"Chicago Black Hawks, who else?"

"I don't know. The Colorado Redwings?"

"Ah, come on, Daniel. You said you'd only lost 'who' you are. Everybody knows you cheer for your home team."

"Aren't we in Colorado?"

"Yeah, but my home team is Chicago."

Daniel scrunched up his face, trying to follow the logic. "Good, you won." He gave up. "Why are we sleeping outside?"

Jack threw a pillow at him. "Why do you think we're sleeping outside?"

"Uhm . . . because you don't want to change the sheets inside?"

"Think again, genius. I changed the sheets while you were chasing demons in the woods this afternoon. You want to sleep in your bed, you're welcome to."

"Uhhh, Jack?"

"What?"

"I'm not following."

O'Neill tossed down another pillow at the head of a second sleeping bag, toed off his Dockers, and leaned over to unzip the bag.

"I just thought maybe it's something about being inside, being in a bed, with covers and all. Did you have nightmares on Vis Uban?"

"No." Daniel sat back down on the steps to unlace his boots.

"So, think of this as an experiment. I'm thinking you probably slept on the ground, in a tent, on Vis Uban?"

"Yes?"

"So, maybe sleeping out under the stars will be different from sleeping inside, in a bed, with sheets and blankets that are maybe . . . a little . . . restrictive."

"How's a sleeping bag not restrictive?"

"You want to do this or not?"

"Sorry. It's certainly worth a try."

Daniel pulled his boots off, unzipped the side of the sleeping bag, and slid gratefully into the warmth. He turned on his back and lay looking up at the stars again.

"Jack?"

"You're welcome, Daniel. By the way, the bathroom is down the hall on the right, I left the light on, and I left a new toothbrush out on the sink. Razors and shaving cream are underneath."

Daniel smiled. "The sink?"

"Yeah."

"Jack?" He tried again, though he had no idea how to thank the man for the obvious effort he was making to ease him back into this life.

"Daniel?"

"It's good to be back."

Thinking of his talk with Sam, Daniel hoped his friend was hearing the unspoken message he was trying to convey.

Jack slid into his own sleeping bag. "It's good to have you back. Goodnight, Daniel."

"Nite, Jack."

…..

"Hey, Teal'c." Daniel glanced up briefly from the small statue he was examining under the magnifying glass.

Several minutes passed before he looked up again and realized the Jaffa was still standing imperturbably in the doorway.

"Did you want me for something? It's not lunch time already is it?"

He glanced automatically at the large wall clock and saw it was only 10:30. Puzzled, he looked back at the patiently waiting alien.

"I wish to converse with you, Danieljackson."

"Okay." Daniel tilted his head inquiringly. "You want to come in then?"

"Thank you." Teal'c inclined his head as he entered the office.

"Uhm, was there some reason you didn't just - come in?" He pushed away the magnifying glass.

The little statue he'd been studying had been in the box of things that had been given to him the day before, but Daniel didn't remember anyone giving it to him.

"O'Neill informed us you requested we wait for your response before entering your domain."

"What? Oh, never mind. I know what that's about." Daniel waved him in, looking around for an empty chair. "Hey, do you recognize this?"

"I am perfectly at ease standing, Danieljackson."

"I can empty the stool, or the sofa."

"It is not necessary." Teal'c moved across the room to stand at parade rest in front of the desk. "I believe that is the statue Majorcarter has had in her office. You kept it on top of your computer monitor. Do you not recognize it?"

Daniel looked up again. "I know it's an Egyptian funerary statue, if that's what you're asking. Otherwise, no, I don't recognize it as mine. Why would Sam put it in the box?"

"I do not know the answer to that question. You will have to ask Majorcarter directly."

"Oh, okay." Daniel had risen to go move things. He sat back down, wondering suddenly, if the Jaffa had come to talk about Sha're. He was definitely not ready to tackle that subject with Teal'c.

"So, Jack's pissed because I asked him to knock yesterday."

The archeologist smiled - a mischievous, confiding smile that had Teal'c's lips twitching in response.

"Actually, I think Jack's trying to hone my survival instincts, despite the fact he thinks it's a lost cause." Daniel shrugged. "Anyway, who's going to snatch me out of my office?"

The Jaffa raised an eyebrow. "We have had more than one foothold situation here on base, Danieljackson."

"Foothold situation?"

"Aliens have attempted to take over the base."

For a moment, eyes wide, Daniel searched the impassive face. "You're joking, right?"

"I am not. We have had several attempts in the past six years."

"Oh." He carefully put down the statue he was still holding. "Okay . . . So, anyway, I just asked Jack to knock."

He still could discern no pattern to what he remembered and what he didn't. It made no sense he knew all about the Goa'uld, but did not remember Sha're, let alone the fact she'd been taken as a host. Or that he had a working knowledge of the Stargate and its capabilities, but had no memory of having opened it.

Plus, what was coming back was as jumbled and unrelated as scissors to rock.

"If you are too busy to converse at the moment, I shall come back again at a more convenient time."

"Sorry." Daniel shook his head. "You did say you wanted to have a conversation." He shoved away the little statue and a pile of unopened envelopes. "Now is fine. I was just going through the box of things from yesterday."

Teal'c paused a moment to study the young man, then began with an unusual gambit. "You are aware I am one hundred and five years old by the way the Tau'ri measure birth years?"

Surprised again, Daniel spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. "Uhm, no. Maybe I was before, but no one's mentioned it to me this time around. You're full of surprises, Teal'c."

The alien inclined his head briefly. "I mention this to you because I wish you to understandIhave had some experience in these matters."

"Okay. What matters?" Daniel inquired, responding perfectly to his cue.

Teal'c was silent again for several moments.

Daniel met his gaze confidently, if a little puzzled.

"I have sensed a new maturity in you, Danieljackson, since your return from being Ascended."

A half amused, half rueful smile and a raised eyebrow met this sally. "Which is not to say I was ever bratty or petulant."

"That is beside the point."

"Okay . . .? Then you want to tell me where you're going with this?" Daniel asked pointedly, when Teal'c still did not continue.

The left corner of the usually impassive mouth turned down slightly, the equivalent of a sigh from the Jaffa. "Even with this new self-confidence you still doubt your worth here at the SGC, and more importantly, your worth to SG-1."

Daniel looked down at the counter. "What is it you want from me, Teal'c?"

"I want nothing from you, Danieljackson. If it were in my power, I would gladly give you what you seek, but I am not sure what it is you seek. Are you?"

"Well, there you go. You've put your finger square on the problem. How can I find it if I don't even know what it is I'm looking for? Thank you so much for pointing that out to me." The archeologist looked up, meeting Teal'c's dark-eyed gaze squarely.

He had to spread both hands on the counter in order to keep from crossing his arms over his chest, but he managed.

Teal'c recognized the discomfort he'd engendered and could only admire the younger man that much more, but he was not done.

"That is the one thing O'Neill taught you I wish you had failed to learn. Sarcasm still does not become you, Danieljackson."

"Ya think?"

"Neither are you as proficient at it as is O'Neill." A muscle twitched in the square jaw.

"As I understand it, I've already had five years at the Jack O'Neill Finishing School, so you're probably right. I will never be as proficient as Jack at anything." Daniel deliberately rifled through the stack of envelopes and pulled one out.

When Teal'c did not take the hint and leave, he looked up once more.

"Something else on your mind?"

"I thought perhaps you would like to join me again, in meditation. Perhaps you will find there what it is you seek that eludes you so assiduously."

"Assiduously," Daniel parroted. "You been reading the dictionary?"

The Jaffa was not to be sidetracked from his mission. "I am incapable of offering you comfort in the way Majorcarter, or even O'Neill, can reach you. I have carefully considered what it is I may do for you and I realize what I offer may be neither effective, or useful. However, it is, I believe, what I have to offer. Will you not allow me to impart my assistance in this manner, Danieljackson?"

The pencil that had found its way into his hands snapped in half. Daniel threw down the pieces, put his head back, and closed his eyes, giving in and wrapping his arms around his chest.

"I'm sorry, Teal'c," he offered quietly.

"As am I." Teal'c inclined his head respectfully. "I should have spent more time considering how best to approach this subject with you. It was not my intention to antagonize you." The Jaffa hesitated, half turning away. Turning just his head back, he added, with more gentleness than the linguist would have imagined him capable of, "You have overcome much in the short span of your life, Danieljackson. I am in awe of your ability, not only to meet, but surmount, every situation you encounter. That is an ability few possess; you are very gifted. I believe you have temporarily lost sight of that gift. You will overcome this as well; of that, I am certain."

Daniel sucked in a sharp breath. "You honor me with your words, Teal'c," he replied with equal formality. "But your faith may well be misplaced."

"I do not believe so."

The totally unexpected, unqualified respect and affection the huge alien had allowed to show, not just in words, but in his face and voice, ignited the vulnerable aching part of Daniel that wanted so much to be part of this again; the part that was buried under the rubble of his memories.

A new twist of fiber twined about his thread of trust, strengthening the bonds drawing him further into the safe harbor they were so freely offering.

Family.

Suddenly there were feelings, drenching emotions, pouring off the innocuous word. Not precisely memories, but perhaps the ghosts of memories, shackled and chained still, in the recesses of his mind.

Yes, he was assiduously seeking his past, but perhaps what he was really seeking was the treasure he instinctively knew was buried in the rubble . . . family.

A single tear slipped free of the damp lashes. Daniel, eyes squeezed shut, jerked at the feather light touch of a thumb against his cheek.

"Perhaps," Teal'c rumbled softly, "I also have learned from O'Neill." He inclined his head, enigmatically. "I will not speak of this again, Danieljackson, unless you initiate the conversation."

"Teal'c," Daniel managed, "please . . . wait."

The Jaffa stopped, framed in the doorway, but respectfully did not turn back.

"When . . ." Daniel cleared his throat, "when do you meditate?"

"I generally meditate in the evenings after the SGC has quieted for the night." Teal'c looked over his shoulder. "However, as you are now going home with O'Neill, that will not be convenient for you. If you think you would like to join me, I had thought perhaps to change it to morning."

"What time?"

"Perhaps after breakfast?" Teal'c offered.

"I would like to join you. Thank you."

"I will look forward to tomorrow morning, Danieljackson." Once more the Jaffa inclined his head, this time in farewell.

Teal'c's big frame had hardly disappeared before Sam was knocking. "Hey, you. Can I come in?" She wandered in at his nod, working hard at appearing casual, though her eyes were frantic with worry. "So . . . what's up?"

The words were scarcely out of her mouth when Jack's open-handed smack resounded against the door frame. "What's wrong?" he demanded, without the slightest pretense, frowning at Carter as he stomped to the counter and cast a critical eye over Daniel.

"Nothing." Daniel looked between Sam and Jack, who were eyeing each other.

Jack's frown deepened as his gaze swiveled back to Daniel. "Well, what happened?"

"Nothing happened. I just . . . had a conversation with Teal'c."

"About what?" the colonel demanded.

Both Daniel's eyebrows went up. "About meditating. Jack?"

"Daniel?"

"Uh, guys? Feeling a little excluded here," Sam chimed in.

Daniel shrugged. "Teal'c just came to see if I wanted to meditate with him."

He was not prepared to offer up either his reaction to Teal'c's unsolicited confidence, or the additional piece of the puzzle that had shifted into place.

His fingers brushed the little statue as he unconsciously spread his hands again.

He picked it up, thankful for the believable diversion. "Sam? I found this in the box of stuff from yesterday."

"Oh, I forgot to tell you I put it there. I dropped it in the box while we were waiting for you to finish up with Janet. What with the rush to get out of here, it slipped my mind. I'm sorry."

"No big deal. I just didn't remember anyone giving it to me. Little things like that are disconcerting, you know? Makes me wonder if I'm losing it again; or at the very least, worse than I've already lost it."

"You're rambling, Daniel."

"Oh." Daniel glanced at Jack. "Is that a bad thing?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you're pissed and I don't know why. What have I done now?"

"Carter, I need a few minutes with Daniel. Why don't you go find Teal'c and we'll meet you shortly for an early lunch."

"Yes, sir." Sam recognized a dismissal when she heard one. Behind the colonel's back, she grimaced, then blew the archeologist a kiss for luck. "See you in the Mess."

"Carter told me you asked her about Sha're." Jack jumped in with both feet. "Did you talk to Teal'c about her, too?"

"What?"

"Did you confront Teal'c about Sha're?"

"No."

Jack stopped pacing. "You didn't talk about Sha're?"

"With Sam, last night, yes. Sha're's name never came up with Teal'c," Daniel answered honestly, suddenly realizing Jack was in full-on mother bear mode and that both his teammates had been picking up on his unconscious, though obviously agitated, emotional state.

"Jack," he began, shoving his glasses to the top of his head. "Teal'c just helped me . . . uhm . . . figure out some things. It took a more . . . uhm . . . clinical form . . . sort of in the nature of a debriding actually, before I understood where he was trying to take me."

Jack propped both hands on the counter and sunk his chin between his shoulders. "And?"

"And . . . I finally figured it out."

"So, share."

Daniel began to chew his bottom lip. "I'd rather not go back there just yet."

Jack eyed the archeologist a moment longer. "You going to meditate with him?"

"Yes."

"Good. Let's go to lunch."

Daniel readily slid off the stool. "That's it? You're not going to harass me until I tell you?" He reached up and rehooked his glasses in the neck of his t-shirt as he followed his teammate out the door.

Jack slid his own card through the reader to lock the office. "I'm sure you'll tell me when you're ready."

His extra two inches of height made it easy to sling an arm around Daniel's shoulders as they headed down the hall.

Yep, one of these days he was going to start saying no, just not today.

…..

Breakfast in the Mess the next morning was a relatively quiet affair. Very uncharacteristically, Jack still wasn't awake. Daniel was vaguely anxious he had committed to meditating with Teal'c. Sam was refiguring numbers in her head, and Teal'c was carefully not watching the archeologist make an effort to calm his fidgets.

Jack woke up enough to glance at Daniel as the four of them rose with their empty trays. "You okay this morning?"

"I'm fine."

"Daniel."

Daniel's shoulders stiffened, as did his jaw. For a long moment they were locked in a silent battle of wills.

"All right. I don't feel great, but I'm okay." The linguist folded.

"Don't over do it then. I'll see you guys later." Jack peeled off toward the disposal area.

"Daniel, stop by my lab when you and Teal'c are done, I'll get the tablet for you."

"Okay. Thanks, Sam."

"Yep, see you later. Have fun, guys."

"I will see you later, in the gym, Majorcarter."

Sam waved and headed out after Jack.

Teal'c and Daniel headed for the Jaffa's quarters.

Teal'c closed the door gently behind them and stood waiting while Daniel absorbed the atmosphere.

He'd lit the candles prior to leaving for breakfast, knowing the light and scent would turn the spartan, militarily-appointed room into a haven, and he was anxious that his teammate's experience here be warm and welcoming.

He desired that his friend would wish to return here time and again. The candles, a hold over from the days when he had had to perform kel'no'reem regularly, transformed the windowless, analogous room into sacred space.

Teal'c gracefully indicated a cushion he had placed on the floor for the archeologist.

"I do not know how long it has been since you sat for an extended period of time on the floor. I thought you would be more comfortable beginning again with something to sit on."

Daniel sank effortlessly into a meditation posture.

Teal'c joined him on the floor, facing him. "You may wish to move one of the candles in front of you, Danieljackson, as a reference point. Again, I do not know how much you remember, or how much of this will come back to you naturally. Since I no longer require kel'no'reem, when I meditate I generally choose a focus for that meditation. A problem I have been unable to solve, a dream that has eluded me, a thought I wish to expand upon. And then I empty my mind and focus only on the flame of the candle."

"Become one with the candle."

"That would certainly be Oma Desala's interpretation. I prefer to think of it as becoming one with my inner self. It is here, in this chamber," the Jaffa touched his chest lightly, "that I have most often found the answers I seek. When I am too busy to seek them here, the answers come much more slowly."

Daniel stretched his fingers, then loosely closed his fists, resting his wrists lightly on his folded knees.

"Do you have any questions?"

"Uhm, how long are we going to be here?"

"Approximately one hour. You will not disturb me, however, if you wish to leave before I have completed my own meditation." Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "You will disturb me more if you stay and fidget."

Daniel returned the unborn smile. "I'll try not to fidget."

"Is there anything else?"

"No. I'm ready."

Teal'c inclined his head and closed his eyes. As effortlessly as Daniel had assumed the meditation posture, Teal'c waited. It was one of his gifts, instilled through his rigorous Jaffa training.

He used it now to draw his companion into the quiet stillness. He matched his breathing to Daniel's and realized, with a start, that Daniel had already slipped into a relatively calm state of repose. He had expected it to take the younger man longer this first time back, but as was often the case, the archeologist had surprised him yet again.

The Jaffa smiled and drew in a quiet lungful of rarefied air.

Daniel surfaced slowly, almost an hour-on-the-dot later, only marginally aware of where he was at first. For a long moment he sat with his eyes closed, savoring the quiet calm he'd brought with him. He had recognized that thread of trust again, observed how strong it was despite its deceptively slender appearance, had wrapped a bit of it around his little finger as a reminder, and come back to himself calmer than he had been since the first nightmare had woken him from an exhausted sleep.

He opened his eyes to find Teal'c watching him. The expressionless face was full of understanding and patience, Daniel saw with new eyes.

He smiled gratefully. "May I come back?"

Ah, yes, Teal'c smiled in response, definitely a new maturity. "I would be honored if you would join me as often as you are able, Danieljackson."

"Thanks. I'll plan on it." Daniel unfolded himself and helped to snuff out the remaining candles. "Teal'c, have I messed up your schedule by making you change your meditation time?" He held the door as Teal'c followed him out into the hall.

"You did not make me change anything and the answer to your question is no. My schedule is extremely flexible. I do not have the responsibilities either O'Neill or Majorcarter have. Most of my Earth time here at the SGC is taken up with instructing in the martial arts arena or assisting Majorcarter with her many projects. Occasionally O'Neill requires hand-holding on some project he has undertaken, but those are rare occurrences."

"Jack? Projects?"

Teal'c reflected that O'Neill's latest project was Danieljackson, but thought it decidedly unwise to point that out.

"Usually they involve a number of tools and an engineer who can fix what he has taken apart. Unless he is under the influence of alien technology."

"Sounds like a story."

"Indeed." Teal'c sluiced his card through the reader to call the elevator. "You should query O'Neill about the experience some time. Perhaps you will find it amusing now. It was not at the time." He bowed Daniel on to the elevator going up. "I will take the next one down. I am going to the gym. I will see you later, at lunch."

"Teal'c?" Daniel put a hand on the elevator door. "Thank you."

"You are most welcome, Danieljackson."

…

"So, what do you have on your finger?"

Daniel, buckling his seatbelt as Jack slid into the driver's seat, looked down at his hand. The fingers of his right hand strayed to the barely noticeable, loosely wound thread on his left, little finger, and began to fidget.

"Just some thread. Why are we leaving so early?"

The late afternoon sun was slanting directly in through the windshield.

Jack started the truck, glancing over at his companion. "Just some thread?" he echoed. "That just happened to wind itself around your finger? I've probably got some string at home somewhere. Aren't you supposed to use string?"

Daniel turned his head to look out the window as they drove out of the Cheyenne Mountain parking lot. "I don't want string."

In a blatant attempt to change the subject he repeated, "Why are we leaving so early?"

"Because Hammond told me to get you back into civilian clothes. Want to tell me what it is you're trying to remember?"

"Actually, it's not something I'm trying to remember. It's more like . . . something I'm trying to hold on to. Can't this wait until I'm back from the dead?"

"Apparently not." When no argument came back, Jack moved on. "How did the meditation go with Teal'c this morning?"

Daniel closed his eyes and shook his head, drawing in a long, deep breath, then slowly letting it out. "How did you know it had to do with meditating?"

The colonel glanced over with a surprised chuckle. "Didn't. I was trying to change the subject since it didn't appear you wanted to talk about it."

Dropping his hands to his lap, Daniel sighed. He wondered if it was another bad habit of his, this sighing all the time, or was this a new habit he was only just developing.

"I just wanted . . . needed . . . something tangible to remind me this isn't really the leap of faith it feels like to me."

Jack heard the quiet desperation underlying the weary declaration. He waited out the silent interval without once tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

Daniel leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. "In the woods the other day . . . and again this morning, mediating with Teal'c . . . I'm not sure quite how to explain it." He shook his head slightly. "It's like there's this thread of trust . . . I can see it, I know it's there intellectually, but I can't quite touch it."

"So, basically, what you're telling me is you know you can trust us, but it's difficult to do."

"Basically," Daniel agreed, opening his eyes. "In my head it's slightly more complicated than that, but, yes."

"And the thread is a tangible reminder you really do know you can trust us, even if it doesn't feel like it?"

"Yes."

Jack glanced over at his best friend. "I can give you some fishing line. Stuff's nearly unbreakable."

"Thanks, but this works for me. Where are we going?"

"First we're going to get something to eat, then we're going shopping."

"I really wish this could wait until they get me back on payroll. Dead guys don't carry around much cash. And my Visa wasn't much use in the ether. Besides, I think it expired while I was gone."

"On the other hand, dead guys with friends are in luck." Jack fished a credit card out of an inside pocket and waved it. "Never leave home without it. By the way, did Hammond tell you he managed to wangle back pay?"

"No." Money had never captured Daniel's attention on any level.

"He got you the full benefits package. Ya know, with what you've got in the bank, plus a year's salary, you could probably put a hefty down payment on a house, if not buy one outright."

"I don't want a house."

"Why not?"

Daniel shrugged. "Don't know. The idea just has no appeal."

"Hey, nobody said you had to live in it, but the money's not going to do you much good sitting in the bank, or going into rent. You should at least think about it."

"Sure."

Daniel glanced over in time to catch the suspicious look Jack shot at him over his easy acquiescence.

He shrugged. "Money in the bank . . . you kept my stuff . . . why?"

"First of all, we didn't keep all your stuff. But I suppose what we did, we kept because we weren't ready to let you go." Jack studied the highway intently. "Look, I've never been good at this touchy feely stuff. Frankly, until you came along and made me talk about Charlie, I never even knew I had feelings."

O'Neill scrounged in the glove compartment for the sunglasses he kept in the truck. He was so used to coming and going in the dark anymore, he'd forgotten his dark glasses in his office.

"I could use a few lessons on how not to feel right now." Daniel twitched nervously.

"That's really not a place you want to go, Danny. You're far too young to be as cynical and misanthropic as I am."

Jack had hoped to lighten the mood a little, maybe even get a chuckle out of his friend. What he did get tightened his gut and drove home the fact the despondency radiating off Daniel was not something to be laughed off.

"Life started pissing on me at eight, Jack. I may not have quite as many years, but I've damn well got the mileage. And I have to tell you, right now it feels like someone's snipped every nerve ending in my body and left them raw and bleeding."

"Ugh!" Jack glanced at his friend. "That's an image I could have lived without."

He already had too many pictures of Daniel drenched in his own blood, dying from some staff blast, crushed under a pile of rocks, head cracked open like . . . Jack shook his head. No need to go there right now.

"What brought this on?"

Daniel had turned back to the window, but just from the set of his shoulders Jack could tell he was fighting to stay in control of his emotions. The good thing was, Daniel had never suffered from an excess of alpha male syndrome. The pre-ascension Daniel had never bothered to try to stop tears, or even deny them in front of his friends. Jack fervently hoped the post descended Daniel was still able to access that ability.

"Can you tell me?" he asked quietly. "Or should I change the subject again?"

The archeologist didn't respond for several long moments, and when he finally did, the weariness was back in his voice.

"I came across some of my old mission journals in the boxes they brought up the other day. They've been . . . filling in some holes, I guess. But . . . opening up others."

"Uhm . . . Have I mentioned I have all your personal journals at my place?"

"No. When I came across these, I did wonder. If I kept mission journals, I must have kept personal journals."

"You did. And I should probably tell you - I had every intention of having them edited some day, after the Stargate program is made public, and published. The story of the man who opened the Stargate for Earth. You know, life time accomplishment kind of stuff, yada, yada, yada."

"If anything happens to me again, promise me you won't do that."

"Hmmm." Jack tilted his head. "No, sorry, can't do that."

"Guess I'll have to burn them then."

"Never happen," Jack replied, confidently.

For Daniel to burn any book would be like cutting his own heart out, much less a book he'd written. And it was clearly time to change the subject.

"So, I never got around to doing more than flipping your bank accounts into CD's. Figured after Baal's, I'd ask what you wanted me to do with it next time I saw you."

"Baal's?" Daniel asked, confused. "The System Lord, Baal?"

"Yeah, that would be the one."

"After Baal's?"

"Long story. Thing is, I didn't see you again until you dropped by to do your Elvis impression in the elevator at the SGC. Turns out Teal'c had seen you in between, but he didn't bother to mention it until I had to 'fess up you were the one who'd asked for our help on Abydos."

"Oh . . . that must gone over . . . interestingly."

"Actually," Jack grinned, "nobody seemed the least bit surprised. Carter was pissed you hadn't come to see her. Hammond didn't even blink, just said the magic words; you have a go."

"Wow."

"Pretty much. So, about that trust thing? You do realize it goes both ways?"

Daniel closed his eyes again. "I do. But you're deliberately missing the point."

"Hey, we trusted you when you told us about Abydos."

"If some stranger had shown up claiming to be Daniel Jackson, would you have just handed over the keys to the Mountain and gone on about your business?"

"It wasn't a stranger, it was you."

"Why do you do this?"

"Do what?"

"Argue just for the sake of arguing. You know damn well what I'm trying to get across here. Would you please stop playing dumb and listen to me."

Jack did not do contrite well, even when he was actually feeling it. "All right, all right, so we're still strangers to you."

"Thank you." Daniel yanked at the collar of his jacket. "And further more, you have the DNA tests to prove I am Daniel Jackson, even if I don't know it."

"Yes, Daniel, we do know you are you. And none of the rest of us have had our brains egg-beatered. However, no one expects you to automatically trust us either."

"Yes, you do," Daniel countered. "And you don't even realize it. That's what makes this so hard."

Jack sighed. "Give me an example."

For a long moment, Daniel stared at the chiseled profile. "Forget it," he sighed, turning back to the window. "It's my problem. I have to work it out."

And there was that quiet desperation again.

"Now who's checking out? You can't start an argument like this then just throw up your hands and say I quit."

"I don't want to argue. And if you don't even know you're doing it, it's kind of hard to accuse you of doing it malevolently. Which I already know you're not, so we're back to square one."

The old Daniel would have been bouncing in his seat by this point. The new Daniel had barely raised his voice.

"I want . . . desperately . . . not to be afraid. I don't like being afraid."

Massive understatement.

"But it doesn't go away just because I want it to. I don't know what else to do but move forward, inch by inch if I have to; leap where I can, crawl when I can't."

"You understand we're with you every step of the way, inch by inch, or leap by leap?"

"Yes, Jack. I understand that, and I appreciate it, but it's also - just occasionally - wearing. Especially when it feels like I'm dragging every one of you along with me."

"Hovering?"

Daniel turned his head sharply, surprised. "Yes, actually."

"Okay, I can see that. I'm sorry . . . we're just . . . so damned overjoyed to have you back. See, the part you don't get, Daniel, is how much we missed you. You were out there in the great big universe finding out what it feels like to be a tree, or a lightening bolt . . . hell, whatever you wanted to be! While we were back here on Earth trying to figure out how to get along without you."

"So, I was . . . happy out there?"

"Yes," Jack admitted honestly. "I'd say you were having one hell of a time out there, really getting a handle on all that meaning-of-life stuff. On the other hand, it was fairly clear by Abydos you were getting pretty fed up with their petty little rules."

Making a concerted effort not to sigh, Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose. "I need to know why I'm here. I need to know what happened to me to get me here. I need to know . . . who I am. And you can't give me any of that, Jack, so I need you to be patient until I can figure it out. I need you to stop hovering over me like I'm some new and rare artifact. I'm sorry I can't come up with some appropriate fishing metaphor here . . . wait, like the biggest catch you ever made!" he finished with a slight air of triumph.

"Now you've missed the point. See, fishing's not about what you catch, it's about the process of catching." Jack glanced over at his companion. "No, wait, I'm not done. I think you know I get it. I need for you to understand is, I might - occasionally - just right here at first, need you to cut me a little slack . This is new territory for both of us. I've got my very own Lazarus, and I'm no Jesus Christ who can take it all in stride. Metaphorically speaking, I'm still catching my breath that my 'dead' best friend is back in a physical body, that I can touch you again, listen to you breathe. And, yes, I know how absolutely sappy that sounds, but there it is. I'll get over it . . . eventually. So, if I promise to work really hard at not hovering, you think you can forgive me when I just can't resist the urge?" he finished, giving Daniel's hair a quick ruffle, a gesture that had always gotten a rise from the pre-ascended archeologist.

Daniel ducked out of it now, shrugging, though the usual eye roll and frustrated groan were missing.

"Well?" Jack demanded. "I just spilled my guts here, you going to reciprocate?"

"Think I've already spilled my share, but I will try, too, Jack. I'm sorry I've been so difficult."

"Can it." Jack smacked him gently upside the head. "I don't want to hear that. If you're ever anything but difficult, I'll start believing they sent us back a Daniel from an alternate universe."

"Speaking of alternate universes . . ."

"Can't." Jack pulled into the mall parking lot and took the first spot he found. "Talk about that stuff in public that is. But to answer you question, yes, we have been to alternate universes. You've been more than once and based on what we've seen in the quantum mirror, there are an infinite number of them out there."

"Really?"

"Really. Let's go get this job done. I hate shopping."

…..

Jack was still congratulating himself on the success of their shopping trip the previous evening as he and Daniel signed into the Mountain, right on the heels of Carter, who was turning away toward the elevator.

"Morning, Major."

"Morning, Sir. Daniel." She did a double take over her shoulder and swung around to look at them full on. "Whoa! Did you guys get fashion make-overs or something last night?"

"Hey, I think I'm insulted."

Colonel O'Neill was dressed in khaki slacks and a dark brown polo shirt, under the ever present leather jacket. His sunglasses were hanging in the vee of his shirt and that gorgeous silvering hair was still damp from the shower.

He grinned easily at his 2IC. "I did good, huh?"

Daniel was in light-blue jeans and a light-blue denim button-down shirt that accentuated his eyes beautifully. He'd left the shirt un-tucked under a battered blue and khaki all-weather jacket Sam assumed was an old one of Jack's since the sleeves came nearly to the tips of his fingers.

'Security blanket', she thought, crinkling her nose as she smiled brightly at her men. 'You are one lucky woman, Samantha Carter.'

"Couldn't get him into a new jacket, though," the colonel snarked, confirming her thought.

"Yes, you did, sir. Very good," Sam practically cooed, grinning to beat the band. "Daniel, don't you need to see Janet this morning before you go change?"

The archeologist's eyebrows went up. "No. She didn't tell me I had to see her this morning, just sometime today."

"I think now would be a really good time," Sam insisted, taking his arm. "Come on, I'll go with you."

"I don't have time to see her now." He glanced at his watch. "Teal'c's probably in the Mess already and we still have to change."

"Carter . . ." the colonel cautioned, working to keep his own grin out of his voice.

When Hammond had told him to get their archeologist back into civvies coming in and out of the Mountain, he'd briefly considered palming the job off on his 2IC. However, it had occurred to him Daniel might be even more uncomfortable borrowing money from Carter than him. So he'd bitten the proverbial bullet and done it himself.

Of course, the fact that Carter had told him where to go might have been the defining factor in their success, especially as the Eddie Bauer store in the mall really had been a one-stop-shopping expedition. Everything needed to dress a newly descended, multiple Ph.D holder, from underwear to boots, and everything in between.

The trickiest part had been getting Daniel to look at purchasing a new wardrobe as an investment, rather than an unnecessary waste of time and money.

An exasperated, "Oh, for cryin' out loud, Daniel! Would you please get more than two pairs of jeans! You want to be doing laundry every night? Because I promise you, I'm not!" had finally turned the tide.

He'd even managed to convince his reluctant charge a couple of dressier outfits were needed if the team ever decided they wanted to go out someplace other than jello wrestling.

Carter was still billing and cooing as they got on the elevator, oblivious to the SF trying hard to control his mirth in the face of his superior officer's blatant flirting.

Very few people on the base got his team, Jack thought idly, watching Carter play Daniel like a well-tuned instrument as they boarded the elevator.

"I'm going to eighteen. Where are you guys going?"

"Eighteen," Daniel replied emphatically.

Sure enough, Teal'c was waiting for them, along with Quinn, when they made it to the Commissary after changing into uniforms. They collected their trays and retired to a far corner, hoping to be undisturbed.

Carter wanted to talk about Daniel's new translation and an idea that had come to her during the night.

Too bad Daniel's nightmare was either being sublimated by Frasier's drugs, or had short circuited by moving to Jack's. Maybe if Carter had been worrying about Daniel when she woke up, instead of thinking about the tablet, they wouldn't be on their way to one of the craziest mission briefings Jack was certain he would ever be forced to attend.

Three months ago that damn tablet had given him a major heartache, what with the events surrounding the destruction of Abydos and Daniel's total disappearance from the scene.

Jack left the briefing with a major headache and a burning desire to do a Moses with the damn tablet.

Carter's latest bright idea involved the F302, the Goa'uld, and a lot of luck. To be perfectly honest, he didn't mind the Skywalker part, and though he wasn't too keen on sending Teal'c off to Lord Yu alone, getting in bed with the Goa'uld was only his second least favorite part of this scenario.

His least favorite part, and what had him really pissed off, was Hammond agreeing Daniel should go. He was even more pissed at Frasier for not picking up on his very broad hint that Daniel still wasn't well. The kid had barely gotten his newly descended physiological feet under him, let alone his psychological balance.

So Jack was in his office, sulking, or as he preferred to think of it, cooling off after going head to head with both Hammond and Frasier. He had one hand left to play and he meant to play if for all it was worth.

He knew if Daniel asked to stay on base, General Hammond would be more than cooperative. So the thing to do was convince the linguist he didn't want to go.

Jack could do devious; especially if he got a little help from his other two teammates. He had a few days before the Tok'ra got their false lead planted. It was time for him to do a little planting of his own. He was hoping to find receptive soil.

He ran Carter to ground in her lab but was foiled in any attempt at coaxing or cajoling. Daniel was with her.

"What's up, kids?"

Carter's head popped up immediately. "We're playing with a couple of rats, sir."

O'Neill was rarely surprised by anything from his 2IC. This though, was different enough to engage his complete attention. "You're playing with rats?" he repeated, certain he'd heard incorrectly.

Daniel's head popped up too. "Hey, it's really cool. Come and see."

"Oh-kay."

Jack strolled across the lab to the far end of the counter where the science twins were hunched over what appeared, at first glance, to be a relatively large cake box. Except when he joined them, he saw the inside of the box had been turned into a sophisticated maze formed out of some kind of milky-white plastic substance.

Also inside the box, threading the maze, were two white rats. One of them had a red dot painted on its back; the other looked like your perfectly normal, everyday white rat.

"Fascinating," Jack declared, less than truthfully. "Why are you playing with rats?"

"Check out the monitor, sir." Carter nodded toward the large flat-screen monitor showing a computer model of the maze with a red dot moving erratically through it.

Jack looked back down at the box. "How come the dots don't match? Sparky here's at the wrong end of the box to be the red dot."

"Yes, sir. But Spanky is at the correct end to match the on-screen dot."

"Sparky and Spanky?" Daniel rolled his eyes. "Sam's showing me how the isotope works."

"What? The Tok'ra actually let you have some of it?"

"Well, sir, I made it perfectly clear to my Dad we weren't putting Daniel on that ship unless we saw for ourselves the stuff really worked. I think he sweet talked Anise, or maybe Freya. The rat with the red dot on it is the one I injected with the isotope. See, he doesn't show up on the monitor. We've been at this for a couple of hours now. I also want to make sure it really lasts eight hours so Daniel and Jonas don't get out there and find out it only lasts half the time the Tok'ra are claiming."

"It has been fascinating, Jack."

"I suppose if my life was dependent on the stuff working, I might actually find it fascinating, too." Jack poked at Spanky.

The rat whirled and bit him hard enough to draw blood.

"Dammit, Carter. Has that rat had its shots?"

"Most people don't get shots for their snake food. sir. You better go see Janet; it looks like Sparky got you good."

"I thought that one was Spanky." Daniel straightened up. "Come on, O great and fearless leader. You don't want to be grounded when this thing comes down because of an infected finger. I'll go down to Janet's with you. I've got to go see her anyway."

"Why?"

"Mostly because she said I had to."

"And partly because?"

"Thanks, Sam." Daniel handed Jack a wet paper towel, then a dry one to wrap around the wet one. "Keep me posted?"

"Sure. I'm going to set this up to record so I don't have to watch it for the entire remaining six hours. Looks good so far though."

"Great. See you later."

"Later, Carter." Jack fell instep with Daniel as they headed for the elevator. "So partly because . . .?"

"Partly because I'm still not feeling that great and I don't want to be dragging when we do this thing."

"There is no way you're doing the Gate thing if you're not well."

"I know. I wouldn't jeopardize the rest of you like that. If I'm not a hundred percent, I won't go."

"It's not like we need two people to do this. Quinn can do it by himself."

Daniel glanced at Jack in surprise. "I thought you didn't send people out alone?"

"No, Daniel, we don't leave our people behind. There's a difference. Teal'c's going out alone," Jack pointed out, he hoped persuasively. "Are you going on this thing just because you think Quinn needs back-up?"

"Of course not."

"Then why are you going?"

"Oh, mostly just to annoy you."

Jack let got of his finger to grab the archeologist by arm. "You want to yank my chain, go right ahead," he ground out. "But I want this clearly understood between us - this is not about your proving yourself!"

"Am I part of SG-1 or not?"

"This is not about whether or not you're part of SG-1 either."

"Yes or no?"

"Yes! There is no question you are part of SG-1, dammit!"

"Then I'm going," Daniel said simply, leaving the histrionics to Jack.

He shook free of the colonel and continued down the hall toward the infirmary, disappearing through the doors.

Some things were instinctive - Daniel had headed straight for the bed he usually occupied when guesting in the infirmary. He was sitting on it now, the heels of his boots hooked over the bottom rung of the side rail, elbows on his knees when Jack sat down beside him.

"I'm sorry," the linguist offered quietly, studying his clasped hands, "for yanking your chain. I know you're worried and I'm sorry I'm the cause. But what happens if Quinn gets up on that ship and runs up against something he can't translate? Or translates just slightly wrong? Like the tablet. Who gets to die this time?"

The fate of Abydos hung between them.

"You and Sam? Teal'c? . . . Not if I can help it."

Jack swore volubly, trailing off to silence before asking satirically, "You're sure you don't want to stay on base and do translations?"

"Don't think I haven't been tempted. But for some reason the phrase 'SG-1 is a field team, Daniel,' keeps running through my head."

"All right, gentlemen." Dr. Frasier surprised them both. "I know why you're here, Daniel." She held out a hand for Jack's. "Colonel? What now?"

"Carter's rat bit me."

"One of those cute little mice she's got up in her lab bit you? What did you do to it, sir? They're sweet as can be."

"Shut up." Jack slanted a glance at Daniel.

"I didn't say a thing."

"You're grinning."

"I am not." Daniel's face was perfectly straight, not even a hint of dimple showing, though he was shaking slightly with suppressed laughter.

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"D2," Daniel tossed back. "He poked it."

"Did not."

"Yes, you did. You poked it and it turned around and bit you."

Janet crossed her arms over her chest. "When the two of you are done with your Laurel and Hardy routine, I'd like to get on with this." She signed a nurse over. "Lieutenant, please clean up the colonel's finger and let me know if it needs stitches. If not, a solution of alcohol and peroxide should clean it out just fine. Take him to the back, please, where I don't have to listen to him moaning."

Jack rose to follow the nurse, shooting a scowl over his shoulder, muttering about Napoleonic power mongers.

"All right. What about you? And by the way, thank you for checking in like I asked you to. You know, General Hammond and I just went round and round with the colonel over whether or not you're going on this mission?"

Janet checked Daniel's pulse and took his temperature.

"Hmm. You're still running a low grade temp. The antibiotics should have kicked that by now."

"He's just . . . worried."

"He's more than worried, Daniel. He's terrified of letting you back out there."

"Yes, well . . . I'm not exactly thrilled about going up against Anubis myself, especially given what they tell me happened the last time I faced off with him. But they're my team, Janet. I belong with them." It was said with unshakable confidence.

Setting aside her doctor persona, Janet perched on the bed next to him. "Daniel, I think I understand your motivation. I want to be sure you understand no one is pressuring you to do this."

"I want to do this. So, I need you to get me well."

"You have been taking the antibiotic?"

"Course I have . . . when I remember."

"Bad as ever I see. How many times have you forgotten?"

"Uhm . . . I don't know." Daniel pulled the Z-Pak out his jacket pocket. "Three times a day, times what - almost three days? Oops. Looks like . . . three . . . no four times. I forgot it at breakfast today, too."

Janet just shook her head. "That would explain why you're still running a temp. What have you got going for the next hour or two?"

"Why?" He looked over at her suspiciously.

"What are you willing to endure to go on this mission?"

Daniel thought a minute. "Pretty much anything . . . I guess."

"Lie down. I can jump start you with a couple hours of IV antibiotics, but then you have to remember to take the pills."

"That's all?"

"That and we cross our fingers that it works."

"I can do that. Can I go back and get some work if I have to lie here for two hours?"

"How about if you take a nap?"

"Do I have to?"

"Compromise? If you haven't fallen asleep in the first half hour, I'll send an SF to your office to bring you back some work."

"You're not putting anything in it to make me sleep are you?" he asked dubiously.

"Now that would be telling." Janet rose, seamlessly sliding back into doctor mode. "What's it going be, Dr. Jackson?"

"You're going to make me do this even though I've slept through the night for the past two nights?"

"How bad do you want to go?"

Janet refused to meet his gaze since he was wearing the 'please don't make me do this' look she had never developed an immunity to.

"All right." Daniel bent over to unlace his boots, dropped them on the floor, and swung his stocking feet up on the bed.

"Jacket off, too. I'll bring you a blanket."

"I don't want a blanket."

"Don't take that petulant tone with me, young man."

"Sorry. I wasn't going for petulant. More . . . authoritative?"

"Needs work."

"'kay. How 'bout, thanks, Janet, but I don't need a blanket?"

"Better. But you're getting one anyway. You don't have to use it, even though you're already breaking out in goose flesh."

Daniel was disgusted to note she was right. He found the controls and raised the head of the bed enough to lie back comfortably, fairly certain he was in for an enforced nap whether he wanted it or not.

It wasn't a memory exactly, but he felt sure the petite physician ran her infirmary with an iron hand, albeit in a velvet glove.

She was back almost before the thought was fully formed in his mind.

"Will you please put it in my left hand? Just in case I don't fall asleep?"

"Sure, no problem." Janet moved the IV stand to the left side of the bed, laying out her supplies on the rolling tray.

She dropped the folded blanket under her arm so it landed against his hip.

"Oh, that's not fair." Daniel reached automatically to touch it.

She'd brought one of the blankets they kept in a special warming tray for use with shock patients.

"I never claimed to play fair. I play to win. Oh, yes, you've got a lovely vein right here. It will do the job just fine."

Dr. Frasier cleaned the site, deftly inserted the IV needle, and set about hanging the saline solution that would deliver the medication to her patient.

Shooting her specially mixed cocktail into the IV line, she capped the needle and disposed of it in the contamination box.

"Okay," she rubbed his shoulder. "You're on the clock. It's 14:35. If you're still awake at 15:00, I'll send an SF to your office for work. Will you let me put the blanket over you? Just in case you need an excuse, even a low grade temp makes you more susceptible to becoming chilled, and we don't exactly keep it warm inside the mountain."

Daniel surrendered gracefully. He knew it absolutely had to be his imagination, but he could feel his body loosening already, sliding toward sleep.

"Yes, please." He turned on his side, tucked his hand under his chin, and closed his eyes.

Janet settled the blanket over him, careful to leave it loose and un-inhibiting.

Jack had shared with her the close call he'd had with Daniel and a panic attack. She also knew they'd been sleeping in sleeping bags on the deck for the last two nights. And she knew the colonel's take on it was - whether he remembered it or not - Daniel was subconsciously associating his very painful 'death' with beds, and sheets and blankets, perhaps even sleeping in general. She wasn't sure she agreed with the amateur psych analysis, but then again, she wasn't sure she disagreed with it either.

"If you're not going to sleep, at least try to rest. Okay?"

"Hmm," Daniel murmured, the absolute picture of innocence.

The minute she was gone, he flipped back the blanket and set his watch alarm for 2:55. If he slept through it from whatever she'd put in the IV, so be it. At least he was going on the offensive. He snuggled back under the blanket and dozed off.

"Hey!" Jack swept back into the main section of the infirmary, finger bulkily bandaged, only to find the archeologist out like a light. "What the hell happened here?"

"Shhhh, Colonel. Do you want to wake him up?" Dr. Frasier whispered fiercely, sizing up O'Neill's temper.

"Yes! I'm not cooperating with any of your little get-well-quick schemes. I'd rather he stays sick!"

"Sir, this is what Daniel wants."

"You and I both know what Daniel wants is not always good for him," Jack countered in a low hiss.

"How long are you going to keep this up?"

"What?"

"You can't protect him forever."

"He made that point damned clear a little over a year ago on Kelowna," Jack snarled. "I promise you, I don't need any reminding of that fact. And what's with you anyway? I expected you to back me up with the general!"

"For how long?" Dr. Frasier repeated levelly.

"For as long as it takes, dammit!" Colonel O'Neill turned on his heel and stalked out of the infirmary.

Half an hour later Janet was pulled from her chart survey by a faint but incessant beeping. She rose from behind her desk and went to investigate, following the sound to the sleeping archeologist.

Baffled, she studied him for a long moment before realizing it had to be his watch. Very carefully, she uncurled one finger at a time until she could ease the blanket out of his grasp. It still took practically standing on her head to get at the angle of his wrist to turn off the alarm.

Daniel only shifted slightly and reached to pull the blanket back under his chin with a murmur of discontent.

Janet stood looking down at him, her gaze drifting over the familiar features in a way she had not let herself do since his return. She'd kept a very professional distance during his initial reintegration with the SGC. They'd both needed it.

Many of the tests she'd had to run had been invasive and uncomfortable. Daniel had been extremely anxious and tense, responding only minimally to her light banter. So nervous, in fact, she'd finally relented and allowed Jack back into the exam room.

She'd gone straight to Sam's lab when she'd finally released him into the colonel's capable care and they'd both had a good long cry.

Now, she counted fingers and toes like she hadn't been able to do before, brushed her fingers very gently through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead, and generally just drank in the sight of him sleeping peacefully. She didn't realize tears were slipping down her face until she looked up to find the colonel standing at the foot of the bed.

"I know," he said quietly. "When I touched him, on Vis Uban, and felt flesh and blood . . ." Jack drew a hand across his eyes. "For cryin' out loud, Doc, I threw my shoe through him the first time I saw him." The lean jaw clenched tight. "And then on Abydos, when he didn't come back . . ." He started to shove his hands in his pockets, but drew back quickly as his bitten finger throbbed warningly.

Janet brushed at her tears. "I've seen a lot in these last six years, but this . . . I never even let myself think this might be possible. Do you suppose we get to start over with his nine lives?"

Jack smiled involuntarily. "Please, God? I hope so!" He moved around to the opposite side of the bed and pulled up his usual chair. "Look, about before -"

"I understand, Colonel. I know exactly how you feel. Please don't wake him up."

Jack flipped the chair around and straddled it, crossing his arms over the back and putting his chin down on his arms. "I just came to wait."

"Thank you." Janet headed back to her chart survey, knowing she left the archeologist in good hands.

The quiet voices of his teammates drew Daniel slowly back toward consciousness. He opened his eyes experimentally, momentarily at a loss as to why he was waking up in the infirmary.

Sam, sitting on the foot of the bed, was the first to notice he was awake. She slipped a hand under the blanket and began to massage his foot.

"Hey, there. About time you rejoined the living - no pun intended," she added wryly. "Daniel?'

He forced his eyes open again, surprised at how heavy his eyelids still felt.

"What did Janet put in that IV?" He yawned and stretched, drawing the blanket with him as he turned over. "Can I just go back to sleep?"

"We're going to supper. Are you hungry?" Sam patted his ankle.

"Uhm? Don't think so. I'll see you in the morning."

The chair beside the bed thumped down on all four legs as the colonel leaned forward. "I don't think so either. Come on, Daniel, it's time to get up."

"Shhhhhh . . ."

Daniel turned back on his side, curling the blanket into his hand under his chin as Jack gave it an experimental tug.

"Sleeping here. Go away."

In the next instant the blanket had been stripped away and Daniel found himself suddenly, and disorientedly, sitting up.

"Time to rise and shine, Danny. Carter, get his boots, they're under the bed."

"Sir? Maybe -"

"Maybe we should get him up and make him eat dinner so he can go back to bed at home?"

"O'Neill, perhaps Danieljackson would benefit more from sleep," Teal'c weighed in.

"Ya think? Sleep - food. Food - sleep. I think he probably needs both and since he's slept all afternoon and he's going to take Frasier's sleeping pill before he goes to bed tonight, I think food wins this round. Come on, Daniel, slide over."

Daniel smacked irritably at the hand still fisted in his t-shirt. "I'm up. Let go of me." He slid his feet cautiously over the side of the bed. "Sam?"

"Teal'c, see if you can find his jacket."

"Sam, I'm perfectly capable of putting my boots on."

"I know that," she slid the second boot onto his foot, gave it a smack to get it on, and began to lace it.

"Please stop hovering!"

Sam and Jack froze.

Teal'c calmly handed Daniel his jacket. "Perhaps it would be wiser to allow him to stay here and sleep, O'Neill."

"Didn't we just have this conversation?" Jack caught the archeologist by the back of his jacket when he would have happily curled up again.

Daniel peered at his watch, trying to make the dial come into focus. "What time is it?" He gave up and looked around for his glasses.

Teal'c handed him those as well.

The large wall clock popped into focus and Daniel did a double take. "I slept for six hours?" He rose, a little unsteadily. "Whoa. Too fast."

"Did the doc check your blood pressure before she left?"

Jack grabbed a handful of t-shirt again, then an arm when the archeologist abruptly sat back down on the bed.

"He'll be fine, just give him a minute. What do you want to eat?"

"I don't know. Where are we going?"

"Where do you want to go?"

"Right now, to the bathroom." Daniel was suddenly pressingly aware his bladder had processed all those fluids. He shot across the open ward and disappeared into the bathroom, kicking the door shut behind himself.

He was still yawning when he wandered back out, despite obviously having stuck his head under the faucet.

"You're dripping." Jack looked around for a towel, found something resembling a washcloth on the nightstand and threw it at the archeologist. "Are you at least awake now?"

"No." Daniel caught it deftly, scrubbing his face and then his wet hair, leaving it sticking up in all directions. "Do I have to go?"

Sam, who had backed off when accused of hovering, crossed her arms over her chest.

"Stand still," Jack commanded, palming Daniel's chin and using his fingers to slick down the kid's wet hair. "Under any other circumstances, this would be mildly amusing. There, at least you look half way presentable." He swiped at a stray cowlick as Daniel pulled away. "Especially since you've been fighting sleep on par with a two-year-old this last week. You can go back to bed when we get home. And anyway, I'd just as soon you stay sick this time around."

The colonel shepherded his charges toward the infirmary doors.

"I'm going to do whatever I have to do to go on this mission. I will not let you harass me into staying on base."

Jack glanced over his shoulder at the archeologist as he swiped his card for the elevator. "Just an FYI, Daniel. I have never harassed you into anything. Not for lack of trying, mind you. But you're too damn stubborn to ever back down. If your mind is made up already, then nothing I can say or do is going to stop you."

"Okay. Just so we're clear on that."

"Windex couldn't make it any clearer. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying."

Daniel squeezed his eyes shut, clamping two fingers over the bridge of his nose. "So, Jack, how's the finger? And, oh by the way, do you want me just to stay on base at night?"

"What?"

"I asked how your finger was."

"Fine." He'd taken off the wads of bandaging and put a bandaid on it himself. "Why should you stay on base at night?"

"I just thought maybe you'd be more comfortable if I slept here instead of going home with you."

"You just want to go back to bed."

Daniel shrugged easily, dropping his hand. "Well, there's that too."

"Nice try, Space Monkey. No deal. I'm going to rag on you every chance I get. And when this is over, we are so going to work on this memory thing of yours. I need you whole again, Daniel. We need you whole again!"

"Indeed," Teal'c intoned.

Sam just raised an eyebrow.

…..

Twenty-four hours.

All right, it had taken two weeks and twenty four hours, but Jack had lived an entire life time in the last twenty-four hours. He was going to have start borrowing lives from Daniel at the rate he was going through his own.

And he was still majorly pissed that he'd been forced to send Daniel into such a volatile situation to begin with.

One Earth day - and both Anubis' ship, and the weapon he had destroyed Abydos with - were history.

Their space monkey was back in one piece, thanks in no small part to Jonas, who'd taken a staff blast and very probably saved Daniel's life; though, privately, Jack considered it small repayment not only for Daniel's death, but the SGC's irreplaceable loss of Doctor Jackson.

Okay, so they'd saved the Earth, and maybe the Universe, again; kept Anubis from getting his ascended hands on the naquadria; blown up his ass, not to mention his weapon and his ship; but the best part, as far as Jack was concerned, was they were getting rid of Quinn too.

The new kid had been invited back to Kelowna to broker the alliances between the three warring factions.

Jack hadn't been able to usher the interloper to the Gateroom fast enough. He'd only refrained from tapping his foot impatiently during the long, excessively drawn-out good-byes exchanged between Jonas and the rest of his team, by watching Daniel's exhausted, but exhilarated, grin keep reforming every time he tried to wipe it off his face.

"So long, Jonas, drop us a line every now and then, through the Intergalactic Post Office."

"That would be Colonel O'Neill's way of saying keep intouch," Carter clarified, purposefully not looking at the colonel. "We'll miss you, Jonas. Good luck with the negotiations."

Teal'c placed a hand over his heart in a Jaffa mark of respect. "It is with regret I bid you farewell, Jonasquinn. I wish you many happy returns from the fruits of your labor."

"Uh, kinda mixing your metaphors there, aren't you, Big Guy?" O'Neill popped his neck with a twist of his head.

"Hey, thanks for the uh - you know - life saving thing back there."

"Sure, Dr. Jackson. It was the least I could do." Quinn unconsciously touched the bandages under his shirt.

Daniel glanced over as Jack loudly cleared his throat.

With some effort, the colonel managed to refrain from uttering a caustic, 'ya think?'

"General Hammond, sir." The young alien touched a finger to his forehead in salute. "Major Carter, Teal'c. Colonel, Dr. Jackson. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for giving me sanctuary when I needed it."

"Jonas, you've been a valuable asset to the SGC, we're sorry to see you go. But I know you'll be an even greater asset to your own planet's recovery. Best of luck, son."

Jack thought he sensed relief from the general as well, though the man would never be so gauche as to let it show.

Handshakes all around and finally the interloper . . . uh . . . stop gap - okay, temporary replacement - was walking up the ramp, turning to lift a hand and finally - finally being sucked into the wormhole.

Jack's sigh of relief was faintly echoed on his right, by the general, who failed to receive his fair share of the nasty looks zinged at him by his teammates, Daniel included.

"Well done, SG-1!" the general boomed proudly, grinning unabashedly at each of them in turn. "We'll debrief tomorrow at 0800:00 hours."

Jack tilted his head. "You mean we don't even get to sleep in, after saving the world - yet again - sir?"

"Very well, Colonel, 0900:00. Dr. Jackson, are you all right?"

"Fine, sir. Just tired."

"Good. Good. Well, then, you're dismissed, SG-1, until 0900:00 hours tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the full debrief."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Permission to take my team home, sir."

"Of course, I'll see you all in the morning."

"Goodnight, sir."

"General Hammond." Teal'c inclined his head.

Jack elbowed Daniel.

"Huh? Oh. Nite, sir."

"Right. Teal'c. Carter. Get your jammies and your toothbrushes, I don't know that mine will fit either of you, and come on. We're all going to my place." Jack took Daniel by the arm. "Daniel and I are going to change. We'll meet you in the parking lot."

"You know, Jack, maybe Sam and Teal'c just want to go back to their own places and relax."

Daniel let himself be towed along behind Jack, not really understanding why he was letting himself be towed, other than he was too tired to fight it.

"I didn't get the impression they were quite as glad as you to see Quinn leave. They might need time to process all the stuff we've just been through." He glanced over his shoulder at Sam and Teal'c trailing behind.

"Yeah, and I want us to process it together, like we used to after a mission. Especially after a successful-beyond-our-wildest-dreams mission. It's been awhile since we've had one of those."

Carter's eyes widened in surprise. "It has, hasn't it? I kind of forgot what it feels like to be this elated."

"Yeah?" Jack grinned. "Now what would be the difference?"

Three pairs of eyes zeroed in on their civilian teammate.

Since they'd stopped and he wasn't being towed anymore, Daniel had slumped against the nearest wall. "What?"

"Indeed, O'Neill, you are correct. I will retrieve my jammies and toothbrush and meet you at the surface."

"Yes, sir, me too."

"Excellent! Come on, D.J., let's hit the showers." The colonel snagged the archeologist and started off again.

"Jack, either slow down, or let me go." Daniel tugged his arm from Jack's loosened hold. "Thank you." He stopped in the middle of the hall and slumped over again, bracing his hands on his knees. "I'll catch up."

Sam and Teal'c surged around him, disappearing as they turned different directions at the intersection of hallways.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter. I've just spent the last twenty-four hours in one of the tensest situations of my life, two or three solar systems away from Earth, trying to stay out of sight on an alien ship about to get blown out of the galaxy. Maybe this is just a walk in the park for you guys, but it's going to take some getting used to again for me. I'm beat."

"You were only on that ship a little over eight hours."

"Haven't we been gone more than eight hours?"

"S'okay," Jack patted him on the shoulder. "We'll get you up to speed. By the way, you did good up there. Kept Carter and me from turning into toast, got Quinn back, found a way out."

"Jack, the only thing I did right was translating the technical engineering stuff."

"Ahh!" Jack's finger went up. "This is another bad habit we're going to break right off the bat. I don't care if all you did was piggyback Jonas around that ship and do what he told you to do, which I know damn well wasn't the way it went down. You did good. Say thank you and come with - now."

"Thank you. But . . ."

"Don't want to hear it, Daniel. It's over, nobody died. Okay, Anubis and his army kicked the bucket - for this we give thanks - and we lost a couple of Kelowan's and a few Jaffa." Jack headed off down the hall again. "SG-1 is all in one piece and relatively unscathed, which just might be a record for us. So come on, Carter can't use the showers until we're done."

"Sam took a shower in the infirmary after Janet cleared her this afternoon."

"Good, then we only have to hurry because Carter and Teal'c are waiting for us. Come on, come on."

Daniel sighed. "Coming, Jack."

…

"Sam?"

"Hmm?"

"You're on my foot . . . I think . . . At least, I can't feel it anymore."

"Where's your foot?" Sam patted the floor around her shoulder, found a sleeping-bag-padded-ankle, rolled over, and found his foot. "Oh, here it is. Sorry, Daniel. Can you move it?"

"Not so much. But, then, I can't move much of the rest of me either."

"You okay?"

"Think so. You?"

"Pretty sure. Headache."

"Oh, yeah. From hell," Daniel commiserated, rolling over, sleeping bag and all. "Any idea where Jack and Teal'c disappeared to?" he asked, voice muffled by the pillow he'd buried his head under.

"Huh?" Sam sat up with a yawn. "Oh. I think I hear somebody in the kitchen."

"What time is it?" Daniel reached up to pat the coffee table in search of his glasses.

"A little after 8:00 . . . It's after 8:00! We have to be back on base in less than an hour!" Contrarily, Sam flopped back down on her sleeping bag.

"What's the matter?"

"Head's spinning. Think I'm going to throw up." She scrambled up hurriedly, dashing for the nearest exit, which happened to be the front door.

"Think I drank too much last night." She stumbled back into the living room and dropped down on the couch.

"Good morning, campers!" Jack sauntered in, large mugs of coffee in both hands. "Carter, you must be the lucky recipient of the morning-after-badge-of-honor. Daniel usually tosses his cookies long before daybreak."

"Did I leave the door open?"

"Just a smidge. I kicked it shut on my way in here. Coffee first? Or aspirin with a coffee chaser?"

"Aspirin, please, sir."

"Daniel?" O'Neill handed Carter one of the steaming mugs.

"Does this mean I have to get up?" Daniel moved his head from under the pillow to on top of it.

"Well, if you want to do anything more than roll out of your sleeping bag and into the truck, you might want to think about getting up now."

"Why do we do this again?"

"Do what? Celebrate? Get stone cold drunk while celebrating? Or are you perhaps referring to saving the universe on a daily basis?"

"All of the above." Daniel reached up to grope for the cup of coffee Jack had plunked down on the coffee table. "I need a bottle of extra strength."

"Carter? You want a whole bottle too? Or will a couple out of Daniel's do you?"

"Not sharing," Daniel groaned. "What were we drinking last night? I gotta remember to stay away from that stuff."

"Carter, you get the guest bathroom. Daniel, use the shower in my bathroom. Teal'c has pancakes about to come off the griddle. Hurry if you want breakfast."

The linguist groaned again. He pulled the pillow back over his head and debated the wisdom of rolling out of his sleeping bag into the truck. That would give him at least another half hour before he had to get up. He could always shower on base.

"Thanks, sir." Sam took the aspirin Jack handed her, swallowing them with coffee.

Jack plucked the pillow off Daniel and smacked the extra-large bottle of extra-strength aspirin down on the coffee table next to the mug of coffee.

"Considering you've only had this brand new body for a few weeks now, you might want to think about going a little easy on stuff like aspirin. I know you took it by the handfuls before, but you might find the normal dose actually works this time around."

Sam got up, stepping carefully over Daniel, while trying not to slosh coffee on him. "I think I left my bag somewhere around here last night."

"By the door." Jack took her by the shoulders, since once over Daniel, she'd closed her eyes again. "That way."

"Thanks, sir," she repeated.

"My pleasure, Carter. Daniel, get up."

"Can't we call in sick today?"

"In the first place, you're not sick, you have a hangover. From two drinks, mind you, which is another reason I suspect that virgin body of yours needs a little cautious bringing along. In the second place, you work for Uncle Sam, so unless you're dying, you're at work. And finally, we've still got tons of paperwork to do to bring you back from the dead. If you want your back pay, you need to get it in gear."

"None of the above sounds like sufficient motivation to entice me to get up," Daniel mumbled, channeling his Jaffa friend as he pulled the pillow back over his head.

"If you don't get up now, Carter's going to use up all the hot water."

Daniel sighed, debating the merits of hot vs cold.

"She can have it." He had no plans to get in the shower. "Not getting up until I'm sure I'm not going to barf like Sam."

"Sam did barf."

"Go away, Jack. You're being annoying and my tolerance is at its lowest ebb right now."

"Oh, Dr. Jackson, you haven't begun to experience annoying yet this time around."

Jack's footsteps receded from the living room and Daniel began to wonder if he shouldn't get up after all. Some inner prompting was telling him he probably didn't want to experience Jack in full annoying mode. The colonel's dead-on mother grizzly bear impression was annoying enough.

If he moved slowly – very slowly - and kept his eyes tightly closed, perhaps he could fool his body into thinking he wasn't really getting up. Now there was an idea. Except there was no fooling his body and he'd been upright for maybe ten seconds before he was following Sam's path to the door to barf in the bushes.

Tequila sunbursts, or sunrises, or whatever the hell those drinks had been, went straight to the top of his new list of things never to try again, right under ringing onto an alien ship with somebody he didn't know from Adam. He was positive, what with this job he'd somehow acquired, and hanging around Jack, that list was going to grow by leaps and bounds in very short order.

So why did it feel so right, hanging off the doorjamb, trying to ignore the neighbors studiously ignoring him as they carpooled off to work? Maybe they were used to people hanging out Jack's front door vomiting in the bushes.

If last night was any indication of the way SG-1 usually celebrated 'victories of some significance' as Jack had announced with his first toast, the neighbors were probably used to the sight. Daniel wiped his arm across his mouth, then wiped his arm on his sweat pants, and cautiously made his way back inside.

The mug of coffee and bottle of aspirin were waiting for him on the bathroom counter when he got out of the shower.

…..

"Are you sure, Dr. Jackson?" General Hammond was shaking his head in . . . disbelief wasn't the right word, because he believed every word the team had relayed during the mission debriefing.

No, not disbelief . . . awe. Even after seven years, they still occasionally managed to leave him in awe.

He was a bit concerned the little things that usually spoke so poignantly to Dr. Jackson's state of mind were missing this morning. The tapping, twirling, turning, constantly-in-motion pen had remained at half mast in his hand, with one exception, when he'd scribbled a note to Colonel O'Neill on the legal pad in front of him.

Jack had tilted his head to read it, looked at Daniel, then glanced at Teal'c and Major Carter, and shrugged.

General Hammond was pretty fluent in SG-1ese, but this one had gone over his head.

There had been no fidgeting, no knee bouncing, no getting up for more coffee. In fact, the full cup of coffee in front of the archeologist hadn't been touched. He'd spoken only when directly addressed by one of his team members, and listened intently, with little or no expression, as they each gave detailed run downs on their end of the operation.

It was the linguist's concluding statement, after a concise report of his harrowing sojourn with Quinn on the alien ship, that had the general concerned.

"Yes, sir, it's quite probable Anubis is alive."

"What?" Jack exclaimed, turning to look at Daniel with patent disbelief.

"You're kidding!" Sam echoed the colonel.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow.

The general exchanged a concerned glance with O'Neill.

"Ra is the only one we killed that stayed dead. We'd thought we'd killed Hathor; how many times did we kill Apophis? I take that back, Ammonet stayed dead. Didn't we kill Her'uer more than once?"

"Sokar stayed dead," Sam spoke up. "And Seth."

Daniel shrugged. "Okay, you're right. So the odds are actually better than I thought. Four out of seven, that I remember, have stayed dead. I just have a bad feeling about Anubis."

"Daniel, nobody got off that ship."

"We don't know that, Jack. Can't know that for sure."

"Even if Anubis managed to live through it," General Hammond stated calmly, "he is powerless to do anything any time soon. His army was destroyed. Between your team and the Goa'uld, you all turned his ship and his super weapon into future star material. Dr. Jackson, what harm do you think he could still do us?"

"I agree, nothing right away, sir. But don't underestimate the fact he was ascended. It's possible, since he had no physical body to begin with, the essence of him remains. I don't believe we're finished with him, sir."

"I'm just curious." Jack leaned back in his chair, propping his chin in his hand. "When did you remember all this stuff about Ra and Hathor and Apophis?"

Now the pen began to tap rapidly against the legal pad in front of him. "I've done a lot reading in the past couple of weeks, so the knowledge was there. But something happened yesterday . . ." Daniel trailed off, closing his eyes.

"While you were on the ship?" Sam exclaimed.

The linguist shrugged again. "I don't know if it was the situation, or the ship, or the Goa'uld, but something about it really opened the flood gates."

"Seriously? Everything's back?"

"No. There are still big gaps between what I know and what I actually remember." He opened his eyes, his glance flitting around the table. "But it really has nothing to do with this meeting. Shouldn't we talk about this later?"

"Dr. Jackson, if your returning memory leads you to believe we may yet have to deal with Anubis, it has every thing to do with this debriefing, son."

"And why didn't you tell us this last night?" Jack demanded.

"Was there a time I was capable of speaking coherently last night?" Daniel inquired, meeting Jack's gaze levelly.

"You could have told me on the way home."

"I was a little shell-shocked, not to mention exhausted."

Come to think of it, Daniel had been very quiet on the ride home. Jack supposed he was getting used to this quieter Daniel. It hadn't even occurred to him yesterday their old archeologist would have been talking his ear off as he wound down.

"So what do you remember?"

"You want the play by play, or just the highlights? It could take awhile if you want me to start back at birth. Or maybe you're just looking for what I've remembered from the last seven years."

Carter jumped in soothingly. "Can you hit the highlights of what happened to you, specifically yesterday, on the ship?"

Daniel rolled a shoulder. "Sir, would you mind if I just put it in my written report? A lot of it's still jumbled and putting it down in writing will help me sort through some of it."

"Of course, see that all your teammates get copies of your mission report as well. I'd like those on my desk before you leave, people." General Hammond rose, signaling the end of the debriefing. "Again, congratulations on an excellent job, SG-1. Dr. Jackson, I'd appreciate it if you could validate your conclusions. Do some research for me, would you? See if you can find any precedent for this kind of thing."

"Yes, sir. With all due respect," Daniel rarely spoke military, so when he did it garnered attention. "The information we have on the Ancients is sketchy at best. It's possible there's information in something I wasn't able to translate prior to ascending, but we don't seem to have much on them, period. I can look, but this isn't the kind of thing you're going to find on the internet. If I do find anything, it's likely to be by sheer luck. However, sir, I know I'm right."

He felt it clear to his bones. And when Dr. Jackson knew he was right, he was immovable, even by a length of two-by-four.

"Perhaps if we were to return to the planet, Kheb, Danieljackson. Were there not innumerable walls of information in that temple where you first met Oma Desala?"

Daniel jumped like he'd been hit with a bolt of lightening as the memory of Kheb and his first contact with his mentor surged to the forefront. "Yes! There might be something there. That might be the answer, sir!"

Hammond paused at the head of the table. "Good thought, Teal'c. Let's schedule a mission to Kheb early next week."

Curiosity had him glancing toward the note on Dr. Jackson's legal pad.

Smiling he added, "You've been hard at this for weeks now, people. As soon as your reports are turned in, consider yourselves on stand down until Monday. I don't want to see any of you anywhere near the Mountain. Teal'c, go see your family. Or all of you go fishing. That's an order. Dismissed, SG-1."

General Hammond exited the board room feeling much better about his lapse in SG-1ese; the note had read - Can I go back to bed when this is done?

They sat blinking at each other for several moments, surprised by the brusquely delivered order. It was not unusual to spend weeks preparing for a mission of this magnitude.

Sure, there'd been the added stress of Daniel's reintegration and coping with his memory loss, but any drawbacks from working around that had been relegated to the status of - who cares, he's back. In any case, it had been his descension and return that had put them on this path. Without his new interpretation of the tablet, none of this would have happened.

Slightly bewildered, they all rose, heading out to the hallway and down toward the elevator. Jack swiped his card through the reader, the doors opened, and they filed on silently.

"Everybody going to eighteen?"

He stabbed the button and the doors swished closed, leaving them staring at their feet, or alternatively, the ceiling.

Today the elevator whisked them up the nine stories to their offices faster than Jack could ask, "Any bright ideas on how we should spend our down time? No? Me either. Okay, let's reconvene in Daniel's office when we're all done with reports. We'll think of something. Think Hammond would let us go off-world? I'm thinking I'd like to revisit P6X 787."

"The tropical planet, sir, with those gorgeous beaches?"

"Yeah, that one, although we could just head for Acapulco. The accommodations would probably be better. Anyway, think about it, guys."

They filed off the elevator, Sam and Teal'c peeling off to their separate destinations.

"Jack, I should probably stick around here. I've got lots of personal stuff I need to take care of that's difficult to get done while we're working. And I've got stacks of stuff to go through; cards and things people gave me. I need to write notes. I could really use the time."

"First of all, General Hammond just ordered us out of the Mountain. What's on your desk, stays on your desk. And we can always come in late, or leave early next week to take care of personal stuff. For that matter, if it comes down to it, you can just take my truck." Jack made shooing motions. "Go on. We'll talk about it later."

"Jack . . ."

"Oh, for cryin' out loud, lighten up, Daniel. Let's just keep our options open for now, okay?"

"I don't want to go anywhere. No, wait. I'm not going anywhere. I want to get these things done. I want to get my life back together again. Go to P6X whatever, or go to Acapulco with Sam and Teal'c. I'm. Staying. Here."

Jack heaved a sigh. "Damn, you're as stubborn as ever aren't you?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Never mind. We'll stay home and put you back together, Humpty Dumpty."

"I don't need you to stay and hand hold, Jack. I'm perfectly capable of doing this by myself."

"Not going to happen. Catch you in a few." Jack sauntered off to his own office, leaving the archeologist standing in front of his lab door.

For a moment Daniel leaned his forehead against the cool metal, then swiped his card though the reader, opened the door and closed it behind himself.

He needed to concentrate in order to get his thoughts in some kind of order and that required coffee. He started a new pot, turned on the computer and began scrolling through the information in his head as he mindlessly poured a cup and sat down at the keyboard. This was going to take awhile. Inhaling the scent of the fortifying caffeine, Daniel cautiously sipped the hot, black brew and settled in for the duration.

In the back of his mind, he kept expecting Jack to come banging on his door demanding to know why he wasn't done yet. So he was surprised to find himself still alone and undisturbed when he finally saved and printed the file - seven cups of coffee and three hours later. He closed the document, opened his e-mail and sent it off to his three teammates.

It was standard operating procedure that Jack got copies of all their mission reports. The only unusual thing here was being directed to send his report straight to Sam and Teal'c as well.

He rose, stretching thankfully, and took the copy from the printer, mildly surprised again, when he made it all the way to Hammond's office without running into his C.O. With General Hammond's renewed thanks still echoing in his ears, he ambled back down the hall, deep in thought.

"Hey." Sam strode off the elevator, bumping his shoulder in a friendly manner when he didn't acknowledge her greeting. "Earth to Daniel?"

"Oh . . . Hey." Daniel shook his head. "Sorry. You just finishing, too?"

"Yep. Dropping off the general's copy. You done?"

"Just left mine."

"Great. I've got a few things to finish up in the lab. See you in yours in a few?"

"Uh, Sam? I need to talk to Jack. It may take more than a few minutes. Mind if we come to your lab instead? When I'm done?"

"Sure. No problem. Want me to let Teal'c know too?"

"Would you? Thanks." Daniel smiled. "See you in a bit."

"Hey? You okay?"

Daniel gnawed his lip. "Actually, I think I will be. Sam?" He shoved his hands in his pockets.

She tilted her head inquiringly.

"Just - I don't know . . . thank you."

Not caring who saw them, or what rumors were likely to get started if they did, Sam pulled him into a full body hug. She sighed in bliss when he immediately hugged her back just as hard and drew back to grin at him.

"You're more than welcome. It's so good to have you back!"

"Even with all my bad habits?"

"Only you would ever ask that question without it being a bid for compliments." Sam hugged him again and let him go. "I sincerely hope every fault and foible is still intact. I told you before, Daniel, I adore you just the way you are. Go talk to the colonel." She swiped her card for the elevator since it appeared he couldn't find his again. "Teal'c and I will wait for you in my lab."

"Really, Sam, thanks."

Sam smiled, winked, and waved him on to the elevator. "Later."

Two minutes later Daniel raised his hand to knock on the closed office door of Colonel Jonathan 'Jack' O'Neill. He hesitated, then firmly rapped his knuckles against the steel.

"Come."

Daniel opened the door and stepped in, closing it behind himself and leaning back against it.

It was a moment before Jack glanced over. An eyebrow went up in inquiry.

"You're busy."

"Just a little FYI . . ." Jack took a moment to complete the line he was typing. "Anytime you actually track me down in my office, I'm busy," he added, swiveling around in his chair.

"Oh . . . well . . . If it's important, I can come back later."

Jack leaned back, propping his chin on his hand.

"Do I need to paint you a picture? Anytime you find me in my office, I'm doing important stuff. See, I don't like being in my office. I avoid it as much as possible. Want to know why? I hate doing important stuff, because important stuff almost always involves paperwork and there's nothing I detest more than paperwork. Not even the Goa'uld. So, yeah, I'm doing important stuff. What do you want?"

"Uh . . . it's not important, it can wait. I'll come back." Daniel twisted the doorknob behind his back.

Jack's barked, "Daniel! Sit!" cut off his retreat.

"It was important enough for you to hunt me down. I can't remember the last time that happened. In fact," the colonel mused, "I wasn't even aware you knew where my office was."

"Very funny." Daniel sat, despite feeling like a puppy called to heel.

"I'm serious; you always made me come to you before. So what's on your mind?"

Daniel squirmed uncomfortably. Now that he was here, he wasn't quite sure how to tackle the subject.

"Uhm . . . are you still working on your report?"

"Almost done. Does this have something to do with yours?"

"No. Well . . . " The archeologist ran a hand over his face. "Sort of . . . maybe . . . I guess."

Enjoying the uncharacteristic confusion, Jack merely waited. Daniel rarely ever floundered like this.

"It's just . . . look, it's really no big deal, I just wanted to talk to you about some things I remembered."

"Okay. If it can wait a few minutes, I'll finish up and you can go with me to drop it off. Then we can go up to the top if you want."

"Sure."

Daniel's smile of relief was a beautiful thing.

As he turned back to his keyboard, Jack made a mental note to reassure Daniel frequently. The kid had never really internalized the significance of his contribution to the team. He wanted to make sure this time around, Daniel understood how much they all valued him and not just for his contributions.

He'd wasted a lot of time staring at the memo-covered cork board above his computer, imagining the different scenarios that could have played out over the last forty-eight hours, all of them ending up with their teammate dead again.

He had never doubted he and Carter could hold up their end of that crazy scenario she'd outlined in the briefing room two weeks ago. He'd never really doubted Teal'c would move heaven and Earth to make sure the Goa'uld would be there to finish the job SG-1 had started.

But doubt, and guilt, had eaten another large hole in his soul that he hadn't found some way to make certain Daniel was kept out of the fray. Or perhaps, more truthfully, his acidic guilt had enlarged the original hole burned into his conscience with ascended Daniel's disappearance after Abydos.

Daniel had nothing on him when it came to guilt, except Jack reserved his guilt for not protecting his family. There was no question in his mind he did his best to protect the universe, even sacrificing his 'family' when necessary. It was the fact he could, with little or no deliberation, sacrifice his family, that ate at him.

In Jack O'Neill's code of conduct book, you did what had to be done and lived with the consequences. However, since the destruction of Abydos, he'd been finding it harder and harder to stomach the consequences.

Now, with Daniel back, retiring was no longer an option. There was no way he'd hold the kid back from going through the Gate.

Daniel lived for Gate travel. New/old cultures around every corner, phenomenal ruins, indescribably fascinating aliens to meet and greet . . . No, there was no way he was going to keep Daniel desk bound. Nor would he consider consigning his 'kids' to somebody who was incapable of looking after them the way he did.

Nope, seven years ago, that energy blast on Abydos that had killed Daniel, had fried his own circuitry. In the blink of an eye, every disconnected Charlie synapse in his brain had been rewired to the archeologist. It hadn't taken long for one mouthy, female scientist to hardwire herself into his brain as well. And while Teal'c had never needed his 'protection', he still fell under the umbrella of Jack's kids.

He couldn't turn them over to someone else now even if they offered him the opportunity to resurrect Charlie. He'd been inordinately surprised to realize that, and had suffered through an insidious bout of guilt until it had occurred to him that Carter, Teal'c, and Daniel were as much his kids as Charlie had ever been. Fruit of his loins they were not, but the intensity of the lifestyle they shared and the sheer amount of time they spent together, had forged ties very few genetic families ever achieved.

The fact that he could put his team in the same category as his son in no way lessened what Charlie had meant to him, it merely confirmed even a hardass military colonel like Jack O'Neill could be human after all.

Jack hit the print key.

"Okay, let's go." He rose and collected Hammond's copy of his report. "We should let Carter and Teal'c know where we're going, in case they coming looking for us."

"Sam knows. She offered to track down Teal'c."

"Good. Then we're off . . . like a herd of turtles."

Signing out at the guard desk, they meandered up the worn path to the top of the mountain where a spacious area had been leveled and cleared, then rustically landscaped to provide an oasis for the Mountain employees needing fresh air.

It was chilly, still, despite the bright sunshine pouring into the clearing. Not a single cloud marred the sparkling view of downtown Colorado Springs spread out at the foot of the mountain.

Jack stretched his long, lean length back against a picnic table, digging in the heels of his boots and wrapping his arms across his chest.

Daniel began to pace, but not to talk.

Drawing on unknown reserves, Jack waited, yet again, for the unusually silent archeologist to spill whatever it was this time. A smile twitched the corners of his mouth just as Daniel shot him a questioning look.

"What?"

"What what?"

"What are you grinning about?" Daniel slowed his footsteps, but continued to pace, though a little less frantically.

Jack shrugged. "Hey, I've got lots to grin about today. Would going down the list help get you started?"

"Sure."

"Quit stalling. What's on your mind?"

Daniel stopped and shoved his glasses to the top of his head, digging the heels of both hands into his eyes. He dragged his fingers down his face with a sigh and resumed pacing again.

"You remember the last night I woke up with that nightmare?

O'Neill inclined his silver head, keeping his eyes on Daniel as he nodded. "Umm huh."

"I can't promise to let you beat the crap out of me, but I'm ready to take this to the gym."

"I didn't say it would end up in the gym, only that I couldn't promise it wouldn't," Jack reiterated smugly.

Daniel stopped pacing and crossed his arms over his chest as well, only on Daniel, it was because he was uncertain and slightly defensive.

"Okay, want to tell me why you were pissed at me? I think I know," he rushed on, rolling his shoulders. "And I don't blame you. It hurt when you let me go without even an argument, Jack."

Jack growled softly. "I let you go because you asked me to. And I was pissed as hell that you would even ask me. My God! It was like putting the gun in my hand and asking me to shoot you."

Daniel turned away and was instantly, roughly, swung back by Jack's hand on his shoulder. He was a little surprised the colonel could still move that fast.

"Oh, no you don't. You're going to hear this and I'm going to listen to how bad I hurt you, and then we're going to put it away. But, Daniel, we both have to hear this."

With a painful intake of breath, Daniel's eyes rose back up to Jack's. His jaw clenched as he ground out, "You first."

Jack dropped his hand, but refused to move out of Daniel's space, refused to let the archeologist break eye contact again.

"I'm going to tell you what I remember, okay? Obviously this is my interpretation of what happened. Yours may be different. But that doesn't invalidate either interpretation. Agreed?"

Daniel nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He'd been very thankful last evening to get roaring drunk, even if it had only taken two drinks to get him there. He had no idea what had triggered the memories, perhaps Jack's voice in his ear piece, maybe just the situation, but with Jack's insistent voice ringing in his ear, memories of NID fiascos, Edora, the Enkarans had begun to filter back. Hazy at first, but with increasing intensity as weariness shaded to exhaustion, and exhaustion gave way to lethargy, so it became harder and harder to concentrate, to move his aching limbs forward, to find Jonas and ring down off that damn ship.

Pretty much everything after finding Quinn was a jumbled, blurry mess of impressions. The memory he would take away from this mission was the returned memory he'd belated realized he could have happily lived without for the rest of his life. He owed Jack the opportunity to say his piece and then he intended to strike it from his own memory again, as best he could.

Blue eyes met brown.

Searching for the right words, never his best forte, Jack began slowly. "We were all there . . . at the end . . . Carter, Teal'c, Hammond, Doc Frasier and myself. Jacob too. Do you remember Carter trying to use the healing device? . . . No? Just as well, since it only made things worse. Anyway, she'd SOS'd her dad in hopes of at least borrowing enough time to sort through other alternatives. So I'm watching Selmak with the healing device and all of a sudden you're standing at my shoulder asking me to tell him to stop."

Jack stopped and waited for the rock blocking his air passages to shrink.

"You came to me because you trusted me to make the right choice. On one hand you were offering me absolution: Jack, make this right for me this one last time and I forgive you for all the stupid choices you've made previously. On the other hand, you were punishing me for all my stupid choices by making me pull the trigger. At least with Charlie it was a sin of omission. You made this a sin of commission, Daniel." Jack raised an eyebrow. "I have no doubt when my time comes I'll be spending several years in a purgatory of my own making, I have lots of sins to atone for. None of them hurt the way this one did."

"Trust," Daniel murmured, when Jack silently indicated he was done. "Who knew what burden it could be."

"Ah, Danny . . ."

"No, Jack. I never really realized, until now, how much of a burden that can be. I trust you implicitly - now trust me back."

"Daniel," Jack sighed, "someone's trust is always a rare and precious gift. Very few people manage to give it unconditionally like you did. Carter, Teal'c and me? We've never given you our unconditional trust. Remember Machello? Both times? Euronda? The Enkarans? I could go on . . ."

"No," Daniel said again, "you did give me unconditional trust. All of you. You trusted me to put away my pacifist nature when necessary. You trusted me to shoot when words didn't work. You trusted that I would trade away pieces of my soul to be what you needed me to be. And in return I trusted that you, all of you, but especially you, Jack, would be there to hold the remaining pieces of me together. I could be what you needed me to be, as long as you were willing to be the glue. Was I too needy? Too emotionally destitute? Did I ask you to fill too many roles in my life, Jack? . . . By the time Oma came along an offered me a new path, I was ready to let go, one or the other. I was too soul sick to hang on anymore."

After a moment, when Daniel did not go on, Jack strolled back over to the picnic table.

"The fact remains, even when you were laying in that bed, layered in quantities of gauze just to keep your outsides in, doped to the max to try and give you at least a minimum of respite from pain, I know you would have stayed if I'd asked you to."

"I don't think so." Daniel shook his head. "I was beyond coping. If you hadn't let me go, I would have chosen to die." He scuffed the toe of his boot in the dirt. "So . . . thank you . . . for giving me this second chance. For coming through for me when I really needed you too, even though it hurt like hell at the time. For being willing to do the Charlie thing all over again . . . for being the best friend a guy could have . . . ever."

"See, there you go again, handing over your heart like I'm going to take care of it! Daniel, I suck at this!"

The archeologist shrugged. "I'm not asking you to take care of it this time. I think I've finally figured out that's my job. I could use a best friend again, though."

"I pretty much suck at that too." Jack scowled.

"Difference of opinion here."

"Dammit, Daniel. What else can I say to make you understand -"

"Nothing," Daniel cut him off quietly. "There's nothing you can say that will make me think any less of you. And please note, I didn't ask for forgiveness. I said, thank you."

Jack looked up again, meeting the gaze settled expectantly on his face.

"Huh," he huffed. "Well, then, I'm not either."

"Good, because there's nothing to forgive. Can we go back in now? I'm getting cold." Daniel rubbed his hands briskly up and down his arms.

"Are we through with this topic?" Jack rose from the picnic table and headed back toward the path, confidently slinging an arm around his best friend's shoulders. "Because I don't want this to come back and bite me in the ass again, twenty years from now, ya know."

"Is that your subtle way of letting me know you're going to let me hang around for at least that long?"

"Yeah, sure, you betcha. We can do this re-evaluation thing again in another twenty years. You good with that?"

"Yeah, sure, you betcha," Daniel responded, without a trace of sarcasm.

From his pocket, Jack pulled a small circle of woven fishing line. "Don't get any ideas here. It's not like I'm asking you to marry me or anything, but I wanted you to have something more substantial than thread to represent SG-1. I thought about waiting until Carter and Teal'c were around, because they're part of this too, Daniel. We're all in this together. But now seems to be the right time."

He held out the intricately woven ring on his palm.

"Will you trade me your thread for my fishing line?" Will you let us be there with you when you make that ultimate leap of faith?

Daniel stopped, lifted his hand and bit through a piece of the thin filament wrapped around his finger. He unwound a significant length of thread and handed it to Jack, sliding the stretchy bit of fishing line over his little finger in its place.

"I can do that . . . now." He rolled his eyes in Jack's direction as they continued on down the mountain, the colonel's arm again resting comfortably, and warmly, across his shoulders. "And you said you don't do touchy feely well. If I hadn't gotten a lot of those memories back, I'd think you were lying to me."

Jack just rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, don't tell anybody."

They were half way down the mountain before Jack finally got out his most important question.

"So, Daniel, I need to know . . . can you be happy here again? After giving up all that meaning-of-life stuff?"

Daniel, hands shoved deep in his pockets, slowed his steps.

"First of all, I didn't really give up any of that meaning of life stuff." He glanced at his companion, saw the raised eyebrow and looked away. "I think maybe the meaning-of-life stuff I've been looking for is here . . . in Colorado Springs," he qualified, "specifically Cheyenne Mountain."

"Oh," Jack nodded sagely, "the Stargate. Yeah, I can see how that might be your meaning-of-life stuff, even though being energy you didn't need a Stargate."

"Yeah," Daniel agreed, "the Stargate." He stopped and turned, pulling out from under Jack's arm. "I'm not much better at this touchy feely stuff than you are, Jack," he began, again scuffing a boot in the gravel path.

"Yeah, right," Jack scoffed. "Who's always trying to drag stuff out of us, hmmm?"

Daniel smiled. "Uh huh. I'd much rather drag stuff out of you than talk about my stuff."

For a long minute Jack just looked at him. "Oh," he said finally, more than a little surprised at the truth of the statement. "Too bad. Shoe's on the other foot now."

"Well . . ." Daniel turned to look out over the valley, "I guess I can tell you I think another one of the things I've finally figured out is that my meaning-of-life stuff revolves around people I love."

He glanced up again to find Jack watching him with that half smile the colonel occasionally got when he found something amusing.

"And?" Jack inquired. "So?"

"And . . . so what?"

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Which was?"

Jack folded his arms over his chest. "Can you be happy here again?"

"Oh." Daniel turned to continue on down the mountain. "Yeah, I can . . . I am." He glanced back over his shoulder at his C.O. "You coming?"

"That's it?" Jack didn't move. "Yeah, I can? I am?"

"Hey, I answered your question, didn't I?"

"Throw me a bone here, D.J. How do you know?"

Daniel turned back, raised a hand to shade his eyes, and said simply, "You're here. Sam's here. Teal'c's here. You happy now?"

"Yeah," Jack grinned. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Hey, Daniel?" Jack fell instep with his friend again.

"Jack?" Daniel fell easily into their routine.

"Welcome home."

Hardwired? Oh yeah – and damned glad of it, too.

Finis