"The Other Side"

Jack O'Neill sat in the cab of his truck staring up at the apartment complex before him. The engine was still idling, and the colonel looked at the two boxes of pizza steaming in the seat next to him. A case of imported beer, still cold, was on the floor. Jack hated imported beer; it was a peace offering, and Daniel would know it.

Daniel. He'd been right about the Urandans, just like he was right about pretty much everything. Jack liked to think that he was man enough to admit when he was wrong. But even after his apology on the planet, the colonel knew that his comments to the archaeologist still stung. Daniel? Shut up. His friend hadn't said five words to any of them after they'd gotten home. O'Neill couldn't really blame him. Which was why the fearless leader of SG-1 was still sitting in his idling truck outside of Daniel's apartment: for the first time in a long time, Jack wasn't sure if he'd be welcome.

His hand got halfway to the key still in the ignition. He was more than a little tempted to get the heck away from here and leave Daniel to his well-deserved righteous indignation.

Coward. Jack cursed the little voice in his head that sounded disturbingly like his insubordinate archaeologist. His hand dropped to his knee, tapping a nonsense rhythm against the denim of his jeans. If he backed out now, he'd be calling himself ten kinds of idiot for a month. Besides, he'd spent too much on this beer to let it go to waste.

With more confidence than he felt, Jack yanked the keys from the ignition and gathered up his food.

While Daniel didn't slam the door in Jack's face, he didn't look overly thrilled to see the older man standing in his hallway either. He kept the door halfway open and leaned against the frame, arms crossed over his chest. Jack noted uneasily that it didn't look like his friend had any intention of actually letting anyone inside. "Jack."

"Hi!" Jack greeted. "I, uh…" he gestured to the beer he'd set down with the arm not balancing the pizza boxes. "…Brought stuff." He tried not to wince at how lame that sounded, even to him.

Daniel shoved himself off the doorframe and walked inside, leaving Jack to wrestle his way in and kick the door shut behind him without dropping his edibles. He lowered the pizza to the table and went to put the beer in the fridge. Daniel stayed in the living room, watching without comment. "I brought your favorite," Jack explained with a little too much enthusiasm. He handed Daniel a beer to prove it. "And the pizza's sausage with extra cheese." He raised his eyebrows hopefully.

"I know what you're doing," Daniel informed him. He took the beer anyway.

Score one for the colonel. Jack smothered the grin threatening to break out. "Is it working?"

Daniel's blue eyes flickered from Jack to the pizza to the hard-to-find beer in his hand. "Maybe," he admitted.

"Good!" His friend opened a pizza box and put two slices on a paper plate he'd scrounged from the kitchen. He handed it triumphantly to Daniel before getting a few slices of his own. "'Cause I gotta tell ya, your good graces don't come cheap." That almost earned him a smile

The two men settled at the table, forgoing their normal places on Daniel's couch for the sake of the carpet. When this place said extra cheese, they meant extra cheese. After a few bites though, Jack sighed and put his nearly demolished slice down. "Look…" he started in.

"It's fine," Daniel cut him off.

"No, it's not." The younger man looked up in surprise at the sincerity in the colonel's voice. Jack sighed. "I was an idiot. I should've listened."

Daniel just took another pull of beer. He swallowed thoughtfully, bright eyes distant behind his glasses. "I'm sorry I didn't find a better way to convince you."

Jack nodded his acceptance of this and the two men returned to their food. For a few minutes the only sounds to invade the room were chewing and the clink of bottles meeting the wood of the tabletop. Finally the archaeologist cocked his head and leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping idly on the side of his empty bottle. "Why is it that I can never stay mad at you?"

O'Neill ran a hand through his silver hair and shoved his plate away. "Got me, Daniel. Most other people don't seem to have a problem with it." Sara came to mind right off the bat. Carter, too. Teal'c on occasion.

Finally a smile crossed the younger man's face. "Yeah…" he caught Jack's eye. "I guess it's a good thing that I'm not 'other people'."

"Good thing," the older man replied. He suppressed a sigh of relief.

A mischievous twinkle sparked in Daniel's eyes. "Yeah," he continued. "Because if I were, it would have taken at least another case of beer to get you in the door."

"Well, let's count our blessing then." Jack got them both another beer. This imported stuff wasn't so bad, once you got used to it. He handed Daniel a bottle and raised his own in a toast. "To you," the colonel proposed with the not-quite-grin that told Daniel he was about as serious as he was going to get. "May you never be like most people."

Brown eyes met blue in a moment of understanding before Daniel raised his bottle and tapped it to Jack's. "I'll drink to that."

They did.

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Author's Note: Just because it had to be done, and I got a little tired of all the emotional tags I've seen to this episode. Though most of them were excellent, I liked the more classic Jack and Daniel approach to this one. Hope you enjoyed it!