A/N: Cryptic summary, I know but seriously, he's being a total moron about this whole thing. I mean, this is beyond his usual idiocy so be warned. And uh yes, we are finally at the aftermath to Polaroid Picture and it's not pretty. Because, let's be honest, they were both being idiots in the last three months since Polaroid Picture and you'll see why. I hope.

Okay, so this is at the same time as A Gallery of Broken Hearts and, if my estimate is correct, this should be Christmas but honestly, the SGA timeframe is really fucking messed up (look closely at Rising. It should be winter either in Antarctica or in DC/The Springs but it's summer in both and that does not make any sense goddammit. Or look at S3's mid-season two-parter. Should be Christmas in the US as well, if Christmas were in the middle of the Season but nothing we see in the eps indicates it to take place at any time in winter) so I decided to fuck the entire timeline and make Christmas the end of the Season but I'm not sure if I'll be do anything for that in this part (considering what's going down at the end of S1). I might just add something come Christmas time, because that's when the big Holiday Fic Frenzy usually grips me.

Anyway, err... enjoy!

This Ain't One Of Them

"An empty house, a setting sun
At four a.m.
Some battles fought are battles won
But this ain't one of them."

Milow, "Out of my Hands"

Maybe quitting the SGC wasn't such a good idea, after all.

Or, no, scratch that, it was – every time I walked past the work-out room I remembered Reece punching me in the face and every time I walked past the infirmary I waited for Laura to come out of her office to tell me I should stop dating medical personnel and every time I sat down in the mess hall I remembered how Laura hated Salisbury steak and ate it every damn time it was on offer, anyway and really, the entire SGC was just one big mess of memories of both Reece and Laura and I couldn't breathe down there – I'm just not sure if going back to AFSOC and Hurlburt Field was such a good idea.

Surprisingly many of the guys I used to know during my first stint at AFSOC are still here. And they're still as annoying as they used to be. Damn, you'd really think that guys having been in the spec ops community for seven years and longer know how to shut up when the answers you get for "Hey, Moore, where the hell've you been the last two years?" range exclusively between "Hogwarts", "Narnia" and "Mordor", depending on which mood I'm in.

You know, just today, for example. I just finished training a couple newbies in successful infiltration when my fellow instructor, a guy I taught how to fucking shoot a sniper rifle, keeps badgering me about "Where have you been, Moore? How's life been treating you? Are you really fucking your sergeant like some guy told me at Cannon last year? Or, hey, that chick you went to the Academy with… what was her name again? Laura, Laura Something…" Should have heard that idiot yowling when my fist found his face. Seriously, spec ops types today just can't take anything anymore.

Fucking my sergeant, my fucking ass – yeah, no, no pun intended – but that wasn't even what earned him the fist in his face. I can live with that, have been living with it ever since Dee and I teamed up with each other the first time. No, it was dragging Laura into this. No one drags Laura Greenspan into any of their filthy… "Sir? Why's everyone at the NCO quarters talking about you flattening Captain Mallister?"

Dee. Just the guy I didn't need to see right now. I ram my fist into the dummy's head. "Because I fucking did, that's fucking why."

There's no answer at first and I'm almost positive that he must have left the gym again. Took that up at some point when we left the SGC three months ago. He'd come up and ask me something – usually something pertaining to some idiocy or other I'd just committed – and then leave the room without a comment after I gave him my answer. Kinda… disappointed but yeah, we're currently preparing for long-term deployment, an insertion into enemy territory somewhere in Iraq or maybe Iran, I really don't care, and honestly, I'm just not in the mood to bear with my disapproving nanny sergeant. I'd really rather keep beating the shit out of that dummy, thank you very much.

Which is why it nearly startles me to hear Dee say, "The word's Mallister's pressing charges, sir."

I plant a biscuit in the dummy's stomach, nearly expecting the dummy to surrender and rip open like a ripe tomato or something. "The word's Mallister's a fucking gutless, spineless jellyfish."

Why are we even talking about that little asshole? I know for a fact that Dee hates him with a passion, ever since he nearly got his first spotter killed during his first deployment as a sniper in Bosnia because he didn't think "Leave no man behind" pertained to spotters, too. The only reason Mallister is still serving is probably that his father is some big ass general serving at the DOD.

"Sir. Why don't you take on someone of your size?"

What?

I blink and stop pummeling the dummy for a moment but don't turn around. "Excuse me, Sergeant, did you just say something?"

Dee knows that tone. And he knows that the one thing he shouldn't be doing now is saying, "Yes, sir. I asked if you wouldn't like to take on someone your size for a change."

The fucking audacity. "Don't, Dee."

"I never took you for a coward, sir." Seriously? Seriously?

Okay, that's it. I know I should just let this slide, just tell him to leave my be, just leave and never look back. I know I shouldn't go for this. But then again, everyone continuously tells me that I'm probably the biggest idiot who ever walked the Earth, so whatever. I turn around. "You'll regret this, Sergeant."

He shrugs. "We'll see about that." Then he walks over to the mats reserved for unarmed hand-to-hand combat and I'm kind of glad that it's late enough for the gym to be empty. Just now, I couldn't take the usual hooting and cheering band of fuck-ups always magically aggregating as soon as there's a really juicy fight on the mats in the making. And that Dee means business is pretty clear to see.

He's not blustering or anything – that was never his style – but I can see something in his eyes that's… weird. It's the same look he always got before an especially tricky extraction or a nearly unwinnable situation. I really should have walked away from this.

But yeah, it's too late now and quite frankly, I could use a good honest brawl after three months of having to go easy on the newbies. So I take up position with Dee doing the same and he doesn't waste time. Seriously, the first thing he does is strike out and shove against my shoulder to break my balance.

Whoa, Dee, what happened to staking out your opponent's weaknesses and waiting for the right moment to strike? Where's all that… violence suddenly coming from? Why are you fucking lunging at me left and right?

And why, in God's name do I just let him do that?

Good question and the next opportunity I get – Dee charging forward to ram his shoulder against mine – I strike back, placing the heel of my hand below his chin just in the right moment and knocking up his head. I can hear him grunt and yeah, I guess that's probably one more hairline fracture for me, as well.

Whatever, he seems to have recovered remarkably fast – the last time someone did that to me, it was Reece and I saw stars for at least two or three minutes – and seems to have changed his approach, now trying to goad me into attacking him. Not gonna fall for that, Sergeant.

Instead, I try cooling my heels a little and work out any weaknesses in his faints and fake attacks, wait for him to come a little closer, lose focus just for a moment… there it is. One of his faints goes for my sternum and I snap at his hand in the exactly right moment, grabbing his wrist probably a little harder than necessary – he did want to play with the big boys and I know for a fact that he can handle it – and trying to flip him on his back… holy shit.

Just when I was about to go in for a kill and twist myself into place, he managed to turn the whole thing into a chokehold and what the fuck is wrong with him? Must… break…

Struggling in a pretty undignified way – what in God's name got into that man? – I manage to kick him into the hollow of his knee and he finally lets go, only to… good God, what is wrong with him?

He just used the fact that I'm still doubled over to turn around and ram his fucking knee into my solar plexus. That was a dirty move he'd never had used in a training fight, audience or not and it means fucking war.

A growl escapes me and I keep being bent over, slamming into his midriff and taking him down with me. I hear him grunt again and then a sound I never heard before – a low growl, almost like a really pissed off wolf – and before I know it, we're right in the middle of a very undignified, very violent struggle on the ground, not cutting each other any slack, just really bent on hurting the other and finishing this once and for all and…

Why am I suddenly flat on my back, Dee straddling me and sitting firmly on my chest, holding a fucking knife to my throat? My fucking knife, I might add. Somehow, Dee managed to pull the knife I always carry inside my boot out and he's touching my fucking knife and he knows no one is allowed to… "It stops right here, right now."

What?

I try to struggle against the weight pinning me down. "Hey, listen…"

"No, you listen." The hell you thinking giving me orders? "Listen up because I'm only going to say this once. It stops, right here, right now. You stop being an asshole, a fuck-up. You stop ignoring orders and punching subordinates and being a slob. You stop dishonoring her memory, right fucking now."

…so that's what this is all about? Laura's death and my less than stellar conduct ever since? She's been dead for three months and you asshole have the audacity to now speak up? "No, you listen. Three months and you never even…"

I can feel the edge of my knife biting the skin right below my Adam's apple. Just a millimeter closer and he'll draw blood. I have to fight the nearly insurmountable temptation to swallow hard. "She was my friend, too and you never even asked, Moore. That day out there, I lost a friend, too and you just went into business as usual mode. Fuck you. I am done with you." And with that, he drives the knife tip first into the gym mat next to my head and gets up, leaving without another word, without even looking back once.

I, for my part, stay right here, on my back, staring up at the gym's ceiling, trying to process what the fuck just happened.

And failing miserably. All I know is that apparently, I was wrong in assessing that losing Laura never even made him blink and that something went horribly, horribly wrong between returning to the SGC with the bodies and now and that I have no clue what to do to make it right again.

Because I have to make it right. After Reece leaving for Pegasus and Laura dying, Dee is the only one left from that other life, that better life. The only one left who knows what it is to travel a galaxy, who knows that different realities exist, that you actually can travel in time. The only one left who has seen what I have seen, the only left who knew both Reece and Laura. The only one left in my team.

Oh God, I really, really screwed this up. I am an idiot. Fuck me.