Daniel looked at a loss for words for the first time Jack had ever seen. He felt a jab of regret in his chest and hid it by playing with his beer bottle, keeping his expression neutral.

"So this whole...uh...this whole friendship thing we've been working on the last few years..."

"Apparently not much of a foundation there, huh?" Jack drawled. He saw a flash of shock, a glimmer of pain and the smirk Jack had forced on his lips dropped faster than his heart did. Daniel winced, reacting like a knife had nicked him or worse, dug a hole in his heart. He rose to his feet, mumbling he had to go, his jacket folded over his arm like a flimsy shield.

God, this wasn't worth it. It wasn't. Jack rose to his feet, his beer down on his coffee table with a thump. Damn, Daniel moved fast. The younger man was already up the steps, opening the door before Jack grab his forearm tightly.

Daniel gave a little jump, turning around questioningly.

"Jack?" The hurt was still audible in the words.

"It's not what you think," Jack whispered under his breath, close to Daniel's ear. He squeezed the arm tighter, feeling tense muscle under cotton in his grip. "I swear to you. Trust me. No matter what happens now, trust me, okay?"

Speechless, Daniel stepped back and stared at Jack. His blue eyes flickered across the plane of his face. Then they widened, reading Jack's mind like he somehow could at times. Daniel didn't ask anything more.

He just nodded.

Relieved, Jack released his arm. Thank God. It wasn't irreparable. It'll be okay. "Thanks," he whispered, keeping his voice down.

Daniel gave a brief smile. "Okay, Jack. I'm sure you have a reason," he replied in just as low of a voice. "I trus—"

Ping.

It sounded like glass breaking. Like the champagne glass he broke during his and Sara's honeymoon. Filled with too much Chardonnay, they had miscalculated and cracked their glasses as they gave their toast. But it sounded so merry for such a happy occasion.

It wasn't like that here.

Daniel's eyes widened as if he heard the sound too, but that was impossible, because it was so soft. He looked at Jack, opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

That was when Jack saw the blood.

"Oh God!" Jack reached forward and caught the sagging archeologist. As he fell to the floor, Jack heard wheels squealing, a dark van driving away, but it didn't matter now. It didn't.

"Take it easy. It'll be okay. Just hang in there..." Jack could see Daniel still trying to speak. "Sh...nothing. Okay? It'll be okay. Trust me."

Blue eyes, half-mast, and gazed back at Jack. He could see the "Why?" in the eyes, read the fear in the hand clutching Jack's shirt. Before Jack could repeat his reassurances, he felt Daniel shudder, the hand loosening from his shirt, and then the body still...

"NO!"

Something crashed as Jack jerked awake with a hoarse shout. He literally clawed the bed, head whipping side to side as he checked.

His bedroom.

Nightmare. It was a goddamn nightmare.

Chest pounding, Jack stared blankly at the alarm clock he had set out of habit, even when he was off today. The clock suffered the brunt of his dreams, the bells ringing brokenly as its shattered glass surface pierced its own face. His aching right hand told him the whole story already.

"Just a dream, O'Neill," Jack muttered. He leaned forward, his hands bracing his head to keep the drums from pounding his skull into pieces. "Didn't happen, okay? Didn't happen."

It didn't happen because Jack bit the bullet and let Daniel walk out the door. So he's alive, the rest of his team's alive. Okay, he probably wrecked something real good within his group, his family if he would dare to admit it, but hey, they were alive.

Small comforts.

Jack scrubbed his face with shaky hands, grimacing at the powdery taste in his mouth. Tossing and turning most of the night, Jack had finally succumb to sleep when his body screamed "Enough already!", only to wake up hours later to Jack O'Vision.

With a groan, he twisted around, kicking off the blankets tangled around his legs, and sat on the edge of his bed. What was the point? He knew the routine. Sleep was as elusive as reading the thoughts of a certain archeologist.

Speaking of which…Scrubbing his face wearily, Jack eyed his phone on the nightstand. No messages.

"Daniel, you can be pretty stubborn at times," Jack spoke out loud. He stretched out, flexing his fingers. The older man stared at the phone again. Jack set his jaw. Daniel was going to have to come out sooner or later. Hell, he could be pretty stubborn, too, right? Ask any eye glowing pissed off ET and they'll tell you.

Especially if Jack was pounding the nails off his door at almost four o'clock in the morning.

The colonel punched his pillow. He could, of course, try once more to get some sleep, crawl back into the still warm covers, and head out first thing to Daniel's place in the real morning. Would be the decent thing to do rather than ambush the guy while he was still half-asleep. Hm, and certainly bringing breakfast couldn't hurt- maybe a nice Starbucks coffee that usually had Daniel up and walking before his eyes were open, and those funny three berry jelly donuts he seemed to favor more than Jack's preferred morning meal of tacos and Boston Cremes. Sure, he could wait til morning, when Daniel had a good night's sleep, and hopefully ole Jackie boy, too.

Nah.

Jack swung his legs off the bed. He sleepily gave his stomach a halfhearted scratch under his t-shirt before stretching. He yawned, pulling the rumpled shirt off and exchanged it for a clean one, letting the other one drop to the floor. Shit, it was cold, he calculated as he rose to his feet with a grimace. He shuffled towards the kitchen, retrieving the discarded pullover from the couch and yanked it over his head, threading his arms through the sleeves. With another yawn, he poured the remaining coffee out into a clean mug. Jack was slurping through the dregs of the brew as he scanned the room for his keys and wallet.

How did that saying go again? If Mohammed can't come to the mountain?

"Well, Mohammed, guess I'll be bringing the mountain to you then," Jack murmured. He headed straight for the door, already making a mental list of food to pick up before he goes banging on Daniel's apartment door.