Jack's dying.

When I first heard the news I nearly panicked.

No. I still need him.

Actually, I think I've always needed him. My life didn't really fall into place until I met him. It wasn't the Stargate project; it was Jack. It was something about the look behind the dark eyes of one Colonel Jonathan O'Neill that made me realize I had more to offer than just my theories and my expertise. I knew that pain, that kind of loss; I'd survived it, but it looked like he wasn't going to. To this day I'm not entirely sure why I went through that gate — but I'm glad I did, because by the time he left, Colonel O'Neill had become Jack, my friend, and he'd learned to smile again.

And unless we could do something about it, that friend and that smile were about to be lost forever.

I can practically feel the anxiety radiating from Jack even before Jacob arrives. I keep my arms close not only to wrap them around the pain in my heart, but also to keep from touching him; I know he won't appreciate it right now. Jack's a highly tactile person, but also a selective one. Touch is how he expresses emotion; sarcasm is how he hides it. Right now, Jack's hiding, and I don't want to be the trigger that makes him fall apart.

Something about the way he asks for time to think rubs me wrong, and right then I make up my mind; he's going into stasis even if I have to force him.

I tell Sam as much as we go to find him. I'm ready for a fight; I know he won't want to go and it makes me angry. I'm only just settling back into my old life, old memories, old patterns, and Jack's at the heart of those. He won't be much help to me in stasis, no, but at least he'll be alive. He's the only thing grounding me sometimes.

I know I didn't respond to him much when they found me. I know it hurt him that Sam was the one who convinced me to come home.

It's not like he thought. Jack pulled at me, even when I had no memory. Something vibrated between us, something so strong that I flinched away from him on instinct. In a life where everything was empty, meaningless, and alien, the power of that connection was terrifying and unfamiliar. There was meaning there, and I didn't know what to do with it.

It wasn't actually Sam that convinced me to come home.

It was the irresistible pull that was, and is, Jack O'Neill.

My best friend.

He's gone.

I know it as soon as the door opens to a dark room, and I'm running to find him before Sam can even move toward the phone.

Where would he go?

He's Jack, he's trapped in the body of a kid, and he's dying.

Where would he go?

I'm not certain how I knew, except that I've gotten to know Jack so well over the years. Sam's called us a molecule before; formed of opposite and yet highly attractive atoms that can't help but bond together. Not sure how accurate the metaphor is, but maybe it works.

Maybe that bond is what pulled me sixteen hours away from the base, to that cabin he keeps in Silver Creek. Good thing the body he's in looks old enough to drive; I don't know what would've happened if he'd been pulled over.

When I get there, the jeep is parked out front and the sounds of water softly lapping on the shore of the lake draw me to the deck in back. He's there, not reclined in the chair fishing like he usually would be, but rather curled up in it slightly, legs pulled up to his chest and arms wrapped around himself.

I'm struck by the fact that he looks like me — in posture, anyway.

And he's shaking.

He's ill; that much is obvious as I walk up to him. His face is pale and slightly yellow-green, covered in a thin sheen of sweat and I think a few tears. His eyes are red and staring, and his body convulses once even as I watch. Quickly I kneel beside him and pull off my jacket, wrapping it around him; I'm not sure at this point how I managed to get off base with my SG-1 BDUs on, but I don't care. The jacket is warm, and his shivering abates slightly.

He has to have been out here for at least an hour, judging by the temperature of his skin and the wrinkles forming in his clothes; either he knows a shorter way to the cabin that I've never seen, or he sped to get here. I'm guessing both, come to think of it. Again I'm thankful he wasn't pulled over.

"Jack," I call, shaking him gently. He doesn't look at me. "Jack!" I put my hand on his head like I had after being revived by the Nox, and he jumped. Something about that touch always wakes him up, and this time is no exception. His swollen eyes turn and focus blearily on me, and I can't help but cringe at the pain I see in them.

"Hey Danny," he says.

Hearing that phrase, so familiar and comforting, coming out of a mouth and with a voice that only just resemble my friend is like a punch low in the gut. My breath hitches in what I won't admit is a sob, and I wrap my arms around him as he shivers again.

"Let's go inside, Jack. You're freezing." It's only slightly cool outside; he shouldn't be this cold.

"No point. Dying here, remember?" The truth is truth, but hearing it makes me panic.

"I'll call Janet—"

"And she'll do what? She can't be here in any sooner than three hours, assuming they can scramble a helicopter, Daniel! I'm dying, and I want to do it here, by the water, under the stars." He looks off over the lake where the sun is setting, leaning into the heat of my body.

"You shouldn't have come, Danny," he says sadly after a time.

"Wasn't going to let you die alone, Jack." I laugh ruefully. "Besides, how many times have you watched me die?"

"Too many…" he replies, and suddenly I understand why he fled.

"Jack, I'd rather watch you die than leave you to go through that alone. I know it…" My throat closes up and I have to pause for a moment. "I know it's going to hurt, but it would hurt more to not be here." He shifts, patting the back of my hand.

"Yeah, I know." He shifts around again, obviously in pain as his internal organs continue shutting down. As though the ache reminds him of something he looks at me, frowning at my knees which are pressed into the wood of the deck. "Come up here," he says, scooting over on the chair. I pull myself up and settle in beside him, wrapping my arms back around his chilled body, tucking the jacket in closer to him. He leans against me, as though my heat is the only pleasant sensation he can feel.

It probably is.

Even as I comfort him, I'm furious inside. Under the pain of loss is rage, because how could Jack leave me like this? Everyone else is gone; my parents, Sha're, Skaara. Oma isn't thrilled with me, so I doubt I'll see her again, and though Sam, Teal'c, and the General are great friends, a surrogate family, none of them are Jack. None of them are this incredible man who gave me a life when I was alone and barely living.

"What are you thinking, Danny?" he asks.

"Nothing, Jack. Why?"

"You're always thinking, and a quiet Daniel is never a good thing." He turns his head, leaning back against my shoulder to look at me. "Talk to me; you won't get another chance."

There's that hitch in my breath again, and my eyes sting as it comes this time.

"Jack…"

"You're angry with me, aren't you?"

"What? Of course not—"

"You're a terrible liar, Danny."

The resignation and gentle rebuke in his voice break down my resistance, and I sigh with a mixture of relief and shame.

"I am. I'm sorry, Jack, I just…" I hang my head, and then lift it to glare at him. "Why? Why are you doing this? You're LEAVING us, Jack! We could've helped you, the Tok'ra, maybe Thor would've shown up, or the Assgard who did this to you in the first place! You, you're — you're giving up, and I hate you for it!"

I realize what I just said, and I'm horrified. Stuttering, I try to take back those awful words, but one hand slides up to rest alongside my cheek, just like it had when I lay dying on Klorel's ship all those years ago.

"It's okay, Danny, I understand." I raise tear-filled eyes to his, noting that they were damp as well. "When Charlie died, I hated him for a while, even while I loved him so much it hurt. The anger…it's a part of grief, and I know you don't really hate me. Think of it this way; at least you got to yell at me while I was still around to hear it; I get to die with nothing left unsaid."

I wrap my now-larger hand around his youthful one and bend my head, hiding the hot tracks of tears on my face. He moves closer to me.

"Danny…I'm tired. I'm old and I'm tired, I have a bum knee and I'm sick of seeing you die, of seeing Sam and Teal'c in danger and not being able to help. I don't want to wake up again and be told I'm the only one left alive. I know there was a chance someone would figure it out, but it just wasn't worth it anymore, Daniel." The hand on my cheek tilts my face so I'm looking at his dark eyes again. "Remember when the orb had me pinned to the wall, and it told you guys that I wanted to live?"

I nod.

"Yeah. You…it?…looked right at me, and all I could think of was that first mission…"

"That was the point. It was me that looked at you, Danny. The beings picked up on how much I wanted you to know that you'd given me back the will to live, but I'd never been able to express that." He pauses, taking a labored breath. "I don't want to die, Danny, but I've lived good and long now. I wouldn't mind going it for a few more decades, but I'm okay with bowing out now. You understand?"

I nod again, my throat swelling closed around the lump stuck there. Of all the ways to lose him, of all the things that could've killed Jack O'Neill, it had to be this, he had to die in the body of a teenager breaking down around him. The whites of his eyes are yellow now; kidney failure, I realize. A trickle of blood falls from his nose and I wipe it away with my sleeve before pulling him right up against my chest. He just sighs, tucking himself into my embrace, the action the most vulnerable one I've ever seen from him.

Grabbing his wrist with one hand I press the pads of my fingers to his pulse-point, desperate to feel each fading beat. We sit like that for a long time, watching the sun sink into the water of the lake and each star wink into existence in the clear night sky.

"It's a good night to die…" Jack whispers finally. His heartbeat is sluggish, weak, and he's so cold I feel the chill through the jacket. "Little brother…" he whispers in Arabic. I startle and look down at him, watching his mouth work as he thinks something through. "I love you, Little Brother," he whispers again — in Abydonian this time. I'm amazed at how he managed to figure that translation out in his condition, realizing that he'd had to start with Arabic to do so. My heart squeezes painfully and I bend close, whispering in his ear:

"Honored Elder Brother, I also love you." Just to be certain he understood, I tell him again in English; "I love you, Jack."

"Bye Danny…" the words are a breath, an exhalation, and as they pass his lips the gentle throbbing beneath my fingers stops.

Clutching him close, I start weeping into the soft brown hair gracing his young head, wishing it were rough, gray, and growing from the head of a grumbling, I'm-not-big-on-emotional-scenes Colonel.

"Bye Jack."

They did send a helicopter eventually, Janet and Sam racing to Daniel as soon as it landed. They slowed down as soon as they saw his swollen red face and the still, gray-skinned body in his arms. Sam turned away and burst into silent tears, while Janet approached and knelt before Daniel, trying to coax him into releasing Jack's body.

Eventually she relented, letting Daniel carry the limp form to the helicopter, where he only released it to Feretti long enough to climb in himself. He could hear the others talking quietly about him, knew they were worried, but he was too drained to care.

When they got back to base he headed straight for the infirmary, not even pausing at the check-ins. People moved aside as he passed, in deference to the Colonel, he figured absently. He backed through the doors slowly, careful not to bump Jack as he entered the large room. Crossing directly to the bed his friend usually occupied when hurt, he gently lay the body down, removing the shoes and pulling a sheet from the foot of the bed up to cover Jack. Something made him hesitate to cover his friend's face, and as he paused someone behind him spoke.

"Hang on, is that—?"

That voice.

"Colonel!?" two female voices cried, chorused by one male voice shouting "Jack!?" in the same disbelieving tone.

Stiff and trembling, Daniel straightened up and turned, letting the sheet fall as he looked behind him.

Daniel fainted.

"Oh for cryin' out loud, Daniel's not the kind of guy who faints!"

"To be fair, Sir, I don't think he's eaten or slept since he found out about your condition…or at least, what we thought was your condition."

The voices filter around me, speeding up and slowing down, drifting through the darkness like fireflies.

"Yeah, about that, who the hell is this?"

"He is a clone, Colonel O'Neill," a deep, multi-tonal voice said.

"A clone?"

"Yes Jack. We think the Asgard tried cloning you in the attempt to solve their diminishing returns problem in their own reproductive process."

"Jacob, Sir, with all due respect, back up and tell me the whole story!"

I faded out again unwillingly, aching to stay in that place where I could hear my dead friend's voice.

"Well, that explains why I couldn't find my ID and was surrounded by SFs as soon as I showed up."

"Yes Sir."

"Jack, do you remember anything about the past two days?"

"No Sir, General, sorry."

"Well then, I don't see what else we can do, do you Major?"

"No Sir, not until we get more information."

"All right then." I hear a heavy sigh. "Someone inform me when Doctor Jackson wakes up, please?"

I hear two "yes Sirs" in chorus and then footfalls fading away.

A large, warm, calloused hand wraps around mine.

"Wake up, Danny."

I don't want to wake up. You're dead.

There's a gasp, and then:

"No, Danny, I'm not."

I watched you die…I held you.

A distinctly feminine sob sounds from the other side of me as Jack's voice.

"Daniel, that was a clone. It wasn't really the Colonel."

"I'm here, Danny; wake up."

No…

"If I were dead, how am I talking to you?"

I'm hallucinating. Dreaming.

A hard pinch on my right forearm has my eyes flying open and I sit bolt upright with a cry.

Jack's sitting there, one hand on my wrist and another on my shoulder, keeping me from moving too far.

"Awake now?"

"Jack?"

"Daniel."

I stare at him, certain that this is somehow a trick. My mind races as I try to figure out if this is real. Inspired suddenly, I lean close to him and speak in Arabic.

"I love you, Honored Elder Brother. I am overjoyed that you are alive." Jack sits up straighter, his wide eyes flicking from me to Sam and back. After a moment, he swallows and replies, first in Arabic and then slowly working through the translation to Abydonian, like he had unknowingly done before.

"And I love you, Little Brother." I place my free hand over the one resting on my wrist, squeezing it firmly as I smile at him. This is Jack, my Jack, the real Jack.

Sam starts to tell me about the clone, how they found us, and her theories on why this all happened, but I'm too busy looking at my friend — my living, fifty-plus friend.

Don't die on me again, I tell him with my gaze.

His smile quirks to one side for a second, and I see the reply:

Yeah sure, you betcha.

THE END.

(Not mine, but I wish they were. Could use the money!)

Someday I'm going to write something that makes you guys all cry. XD Hope you guys liked this one, but it could use a better summary and/or title. Help me out?