"I hate sand."

"Oh stop your moaning O'Neill."

Lieutenant Colonel Cromwell glanced over at the lanky solider sprawled in the sand beside him, gazing up at clear night sky. Major Jonathan 'Jack' O'Neill raised a hand and scrubbed it through his brown hair, which was flecked with gold from many weeks in the desert.

"But it gets everywhere!"

Jack sighed again, his tanned boyish features folding into a frown.

"Why do we always have to get posted in damned deserts anyway?"

Frank Cromwell looked back out towards the dark horizon, hiding his bemused smile from his friend. This kind of one-sided conversation from the Major was not uncommon, in fact wherever they were O'Neill would moan, whine and grumble about the weather, the food, the accommodation and anything else he could find. Cromwell didn't mind though, in fact this little routine was a nice piece of normality in their otherwise highly irregular lives.

Cromwell shifted his sitting so he could see the recumbent Major.

"Well maybe if you didn't lie about in it so often, it mightn't bother you quite so much."

O'Neill tossed is head dramatically. Rolling to onto his side, his long legs digging into the soft san beneath them. Humour evident in his face.

"Oh I'm just a lowly Major, doing what I'm told." A quirk of the eyebrows. "Lieutenant Colonel."

Cromwell felt his face redden at O'Neill's words. He still felt somewhat uncomfortable with it; he'd been promoted above Jack. His friend still found fun in pointing out Cromwell's new title, which had left O'Neill not only out ranked but under Cromwell's command. Something O'Neill accepted with good grace, considering the two had almost identical service records.

Rolling onto his back once again, Jack smirked at the starlit sky.

"Yup. That's me, a minion to those with power, my own needs unimportant, my sacrifices expected."

The sentence ended with a dramatic sigh and Cromwell couldn't help but laugh at his friend's benign expression, O'Neill was anything but benign.

Cromwell knew that in Jack, he was fighting alongside one of the best there was; you couldn't survive in Special Forces for very long if you weren't, but there was something unique about Jack O'Neill. There was more than a little truth behind Jacks flippant words, O'Neill was fighting for what he believed in; honour, freedom and choice. He was more than willing to give everything he had, including his life, so that other people could achieve the things so many took for granted. Few did this job with as much grace and humility as Jack did.

"Yo Cromie! You leave the planet for a while there?"

Frank jumped at the words spoken softly beside him, realising he'd been staring into space for the best part of ten minutes.

"No Major, but if we want to still be on this planet this time tomorrow we should probably get some sleep."

"Yessir." O'Neill saluted sloppily from the ground.

"Don't forget a soldiers only as good as the amount of rest."

"Yes, yes! I know! Jeez don't you ever change your spiel?"

Cromwell rolled his eyes.

"No more stargazing Major?"

O'Neill took a moment to respond, his eyes still fixed on the sky above.

" No more stargazing." His voice was more subdued than before. "I just wanted to say goodnight."

Frank felt some of his good move evaporate. O'Neill had been missing his little boy so terribly since then had left the states all those months ago. But it would be over soon, just one last mission and then home for some leave. A little incursion, nothing they'd never done before.

If Frank was a betting man he'd even go so far as to say they'd be home for the weekend.

But that would be tempting fate.