A/N: Don't worry, Krys, the rest of the team will eventually show up. I believe in happy endings; of course Daniel must go through hell first! What's a good Daniel story without a little whumping?
Restless and annoyed with himself, Daniel left the hut and wandered out into the cold desert night. He felt guilty for letting the thought of sleeping with AJ pass through his mind. Sha're had been dead for almost four years and he still felt ashamed every time he thought about another woman.
He decided to fill some time by gathering some pinon nuts and acorns. He went back into the hut and dumped out his backpack. He then spent a couple of hours scavenging for nuts.
When he arrived back at the hut, he found AJ struggling to stand. He dropped his pack and hastened over to help her.
"What do you think you're doing, getting up without my help?" Daniel scolded her gently.
"I need to pee and you weren't here to help." AJ wished she could see his face. She knew him just well enough to know he'd be blushing lightly. Very attractive picture that made in her head.
"Ummm…ah…OK. Let me help you and I'll show you where I've set up a latrine." I'm thirty-six years old! You'd think by now I wouldn't blush at normal bodily functions.
That chore taken care of, AJ and Daniel sat by the campfire and sorted through the nuts he'd gathered, separating pinon and acorn, tossing out rotten ones.
"What are you going to do with these? Do we just eat them like peanuts?"
"The acorns are pretty bitter unless they're boiled first. That removes the tannic acid. Then you can dry or roast them and eat, or cook them in a stew. You can grind them and make a paste to thicken stews. You could make flour with them, but that's pretty horrible stuff. I also plan on making a kind of coffee from them. Not quite up to the standards of a good Columbian coffee, but better than drinking lukewarm water all the time. It would also be great to have on chilly nights like this." Daniel continued sorting as he worked beside AJ. "Pinon nuts, pinones in Spanish, can be roasted and eaten alone or added to lots of other foods. They're really good."
"Wow. How'd you learn so much about desert survival?"
"I grew up on digs in Egypt with my parents and then I spent a year on a desert planet with the native people. I learned a lot about how to survive on desert food there." Daniel wasn't ready to open up to her about Sha're.
"What do your parents do?"
"Archeologists." He didn't correct the tense by letting he know they're now dead.
"Ah! No wonder you know so much about ancient cultures. You grew up right in the middle of them." AJ stuck an acorn in her mouth and bit down. "Yuck! That's nasty!" She spit the bitter mush out and groaned from the pain in her sides. She began coughing, crying, and laughing all at the same time.
Daniel jumped up to help, but had absolutely no idea what to do at first. Suddenly, he ran back into the hut and grabbed her canteen. He offered it to her and she took a mouthful of water, rinsed and spit. She finally drank some of the water, tears of pain and laughter running down her cheeks.
"You told me acorns were bitter, but I just had to find out for myself. My brothers were right! I'm such an idiot!" She grinned up at Daniel, who was still hovering over her, not sure what to make of this woman. She was not like anyone he'd ever known before.
"Are you all right? Can I get something for you?" Daniel thought there must be something he could do to help.
"Yep, a new brain would be great." She looked back at Daniel, who was now kneeling next to her, and saw that he was genuinely concerned about her. She felt ashamed for causing him to worry about her. She placed her hand on his knee and said, "I'm really OK. I should know better than to ignore advice from people who are more knowledgeable than I, but I've always had to test things. If my mom said, 'Don't touch. It's hot," I had to touch and find out. Thanks for worrying about me. You've literally saved my life the past few days."
"Yeah, well, I'm also the one who led you into the damned building in the first place. This is all entirely my fault." Daniel stood up and scrubbed his fingers through his hair, frustrated. "It's starting to get light. Let me get you back to the hut and I want to take care of a few things out here before we go to bed for the day."
AJ blinked up at him, totally amazed that he could possibly think that the predicament they were in was his responsibility. She had been thinking that this amazing man had no character faults, but he really took the responsibly of the whole world onto his own shoulders. It occurred to her suddenly that while he knew quite a bit about her family, she knew nothing about his. He's a very private man in a situation that doesn't allow much privacy. I'll have to try and remember to give him the space he needs.