AN: I blame this concept entirely on Project7723 (thanks for your support, babe) and that dream I had about episode 4x14, where Jack pushes up Daniel's glasses in the elevator. Plus I just really love some tender Jack and Daniel friendship moments.

Most chapters aren't based around any particular episode, but if any are referenced, I'll include an episode tag. This opening chapter is set somewhere around the start of season 3.

Bon appetite!


"His light blue eyes behind his spectacles were like those of a baby who remembers his previous incarnation and is more amused than dismayed to find himself reborn in new surroundings. He had a baby's vulnerability, which is also the invulnerability of a creature whom one dare not harm."

~Christopher Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind

~OL~

He finds himself thinking about the cafeteria lineup, of all things.

White trays, murmuring chatter, and the way the line snakes in a loose right angle around the condiments cart on days they serve onion rings. About the smell of mashed potatoes layered over low murmuring airmen and Hammond when he asks people about their families. How he remembers birthdays and baby due dates for all those people is unfathomable, but everyone loves him for it.

Mentally, for a good few seconds, he's there. Right in the SGC cafeteria lineup with a tray in his hands. It's empty but for a carton of chocolate milk, though he's on his way to get a bacon grilled cheese and macaroni soup. Same order he gets every Wednesday, when he's too lazy to bring a bagged lunch.

This is perhaps not the best choice of thing to ruminate on while ducked behind a plant Sam would probably know the name of. It's a blue plant, faded like it's been left out in the sun, and striped with yellow.

Oh, and they're being shot at. Can't forget that part.

Not with guns, the civilization too undeveloped for that kind of technology. Not even with spears or arrows. Oh no! That would be far too simple.

No, these projectiles are—

WwwwrrrrRRRRR-thunk.

A piece of wood quivers in front of their noses, buried in the strange tree. A dart. They don't know if natives poison their dart tips here and aren't eager to find out.

"Daniel!" A hand shoves his head down. "Watch yourself."

Daniel appreciates the irony in that. "You're a little late."

"Yeah well." Jack's jaw rolls, which is a feat considering it drips blood and someone bashed it with a rock after negotiations went sour not four hours ago. He shuffles them to a new location several feet away, sheltered by the colourful array of plants. "We both are. I'm just glad it didn't hit you. Think Hammond'll try again?"

Daniel glances at his watch while ignoring the pound in his throat. They keep their voices hushed, but it isn't necessary—both because they've been found out and thanks to the terrible hearing of locals in this area.

Their eyesight, however, borders on falconian. They picked Jack's salt and pepper head out of a quarry, already a sea of gray, from half a mile away. He quickly donned a ballcap after that. They're just lucky this turned out to be a windy day, with cross breezes to incapacitate more deadly fire.

Jack flips his cap brim to the back of his head and digs through their lone pack, now on his shoulder.

"Sam will make sure of it," says Daniel, more for his own comfort than Jack's. Jack probably knows their odds aren't great, even better than Daniel does.

"And Teal'c," Jack points out. "He's going to raise hell for being forced to sit out this mission, you know that?"

"He already did at the briefing."

"Sure, but he's going to blow a gasket when he hears that this is when something went wrong. The one mission he's not here."

Daniel quirks a brow. "Blow a gasket or pop all fifteen stitches in his neck."

"Janet'll love that," Jack grumbles. He finally springs a pair of binoculars from the bag.

I think we'll have more to worry about from her than Teal'c. The lecture's going to be epic, as will Sam's guilt, most likely. They thought they were right behind her before locals fired on them at the quarry.

Daniel shifts from his crouch behind the blue shrub. The branches only make it to Jack's shoulder, something Daniel notes when Jack pops up to use the binoculars.

"You find it?"

"Just a sec."

Daniel gives Jack that second, then tugs on his pant leg. "Hurry. They're going to shoot you."

Right on cue—a dart whizzes into the tall, deciduous tree to their left. Jack snaps back down.

With a hand on Jack's back this time, Daniel half balances himself and half takes a moment to feel the heat and sweat of his friend. They're both sticky, tired, dehydrated, and being hunted like animals.

But alive. Alive is the only part that matters to Daniel right now.

He finds his mind again drawn to the memory of the cafeteria, barnacled upon in it in a fixation he can't quite shake. Perhaps he's just hungry.

"Did you see it?" Daniel asks again. It's dusk, all three suns overhead setting behind the forest tree line. "If you didn't, we're—"

"Ack! Don't say it."

"Jack, if they cloaked the stargate again…"

"Carter will figure it out," Jack hisses. Muscles ripple under Daniel's palm, a pass of energy from one side of Jack's shoulders to the other.

The natives somehow found a way to cloak the stargate—and surrounding forest—so SG-1 couldn't find their way back to it. After the botched peace negotiations, Sam got separated from them, though mercifully back to the gate in time.

Before light reflectors went online and cloaked two miles of wilderness.

Jack tucks the binoculars away, trading them for a P-90 from the duffel. He mutters under his breath in a self narrative too fast for Daniel to catch. The compass is consulted for the umpteenth time and for the umpteenth time, it doesn't work. Too much magnetic interference from the ore in this planet, Sam had said. Hence the quarry.

Daniel pants in a staccato rhythm borne partly of exertion and partly from adrenaline, grateful at least for the rest from their hours of running. Even if it's at the cost of being hunted.

"I'm telling you, Jack. It doesn't make sense. A cloaking device, when they can't manage weaponry more advanced than a blow dart? And who's doing all that drill mining? Certainly not our loincloth-wearing locals."

His legs begin to quiver, turned to jello and finally reaching their limit of effort. His crouch becomes a kneel. The respite, cold earth against his knees, makes him gasp in relief, even as his mind churns over darts flying past their hiding spot. The fiery burn in his thighs dissipates.

"Oh no." Jack slides an arm under Daniel's elbow. He hauls upwards to a chorus of Daniel's groans. "You do that, we'll never get going again."

"Jack—"

"Nope. Negotiations of all breeds are done for the day. Kaput."

"Jack."

Jack grits his blood-coated teeth and pushes them up the ridge, still in a crouch. "Daniel."

"Jack."

"Daniel."

Daniel's legs waver from one side to the other, but he manages to churn them into a fumbled semblance of a run. "Jack, I was just going to say that maybe climbing a tree would help us see above the optical illusion. The stargate reaches just over the treetops, right? The cloaking device relies on the angles of the trees to work and therefore can't mask anything above them."

Jack's eyebrows take a hike up to his hairline, though he refuses to stop moving. "And who do you propose will do all that climbing?"

"We can flip a coin."

"Ha." Jack actually smiles. "You're a barrel of laughs."

Daniel bristles. "I'm not useless."

This, of all things, brings Jack to a halt.

He pulls them back into a squat behind a fat berry bush. Daniel is too surprised by the move to fight it, stumbling over his own boots. Jack supports the controlled fall and his hand shifts from Daniel's arm to the side of his neck.

It's hot, Jack's palm clammy and smelling of gun oil.

His face is oddly serious. A frown hangs under the stern brows. "Of course you're not useless, Daniel. That's not what I meant to imply. But you're exhausted and we're running out of options."

"Exactly. I'm nimble and my knees are better than yours." Daniel leans into Jack's hand, more comforted by it than he's ready to admit. "Let me climb that tall tree—and let's be done with this."

Jack shakes his head, slow. "I'm not putting you at risk for a plan that may or may not work. They might use you for target practice."

"It still doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't?" Jack asks it in genuine confusion, but his eyes follow the sound of yells far to their left. "The peace treaty we tried to broker? Could've really used that magnetic ore."

"Where did they get the cloaking device, Jack? They didn't even know how to work the stargate." Daniel finds himself more and more frustrated over this the longer he thinks about it.

Jack's eyes track back to Daniel's face in stops and starts. "Maybe…well, maybe they're not the ones who use the gate."

"What do you mean?"

"We entered into a leafy area, heavily forested. Did you see any debris or moss on the gate?"

Daniel thinks back to eight hours earlier; it feels like it happened to a different Daniel, a lifetime ago. "No. The whole area was immaculate, lawn leading up to the steps well trimmed and maintained."

Jack swivels his hat back around to the front. "I'm not leaning one way or the other here, but this might have been a set up from the beginning."

A trap.

Janet is definitely going to give them an earful.

"Fifty bucks says it's a rogue branch of our allies."

Daniel splutters. "Are you seriously pooling a bet when we're being shot at?"

"What else is there to do? My money's on some rebel Tok'ra."

"Jack, those would just be Goa'ulds."

"Same difference." But Jack shifts, thrumming with pent up motion, and Daniel thinks he might just be enjoying himself. "May as well make good use of the time brainstorming until we're rescued."

Daniel mimics the frown.

Can a rescue team even make it through the gate without being shot? Is it guarded? It's a terrible thing to imagine, even if they can find the gate in this maze, stumbling upon a mass of SG team members only to find their bodies riddled with razor sharp darts. He imagines Sam and Teal'c being handed folded flags.

"Hey." Knuckles brush Daniel's jaw. "You okay?"

"Yeah?" Daniel doesn't mean to phrase it as a question, but he's caught off guard by the sudden worry in Jack's eyes.

Jack palms his cheek this time. "You're shivering."

"Oh," says Daniel, very eloquently. So he is. His muscles seem to be acting without his consent, spasms that have nothing whatsoever to do with cold. Even his elbows shake.

"I'm not leaving you here, Daniel."

"'Course you won't." Daniel clenches his pale hands into fists on his knees, flustered. His blinks pick up speed.

"Haven't before and I'm not about to start now." Jack declares it as if Daniel hasn't spoken at all. He gently pushes up the glasses that Daniel realizes are crooked on his nose, his thumb warm and grounding on the bridge of Daniel's nose. This puts Jack's arm partly around the front of his chest, supporting his quivery weight. The world comes back into focus. "But you are going to have to wait here while I climb this tree."

"Jack, it's dangerous."

Jack stares at Daniel like he's the eighth wonder of the world. He slings the bag off his shoulder. "Duh. That's why you're staying here. Hide inside the bush if you have to and don't be afraid to use my spare handgun in there. Be back in a click."

"Jack!"

But he's already gone, taking his warmth and soft hands with him. Daniel hadn't noticed how much he's been relying on Jack's body heat until it vanishes into the dusk. Daniel follows that patch of silver hair not covered by the hat until his eyes ache.

Something inside of Daniel's chest slithers when he can no longer see or hear Jack. At least their angry hosts for the day are no longer nearby. Daniel hears the guttural language of the locals from somewhere miles down the ridge, echoing on chilly twilight air.

He closes his eyes and feels a little less numb. Like the air is warm and humid instead of this dry ice type of oxygen that saps moisture in his nostrils. The cafeteria is always a smidgen stuffy from all the cooking steam…

Daniel relaxes on his heels and suddenly understands why his mind insists upon this memory association.

In inhaling deep breaths and his heart rate de-escalating, he can imagine the press of people behind and in front of him, waves of laughter rolling over the lineup, Siler humming a tune he heard on the radio that morning. It's full of life, comradery.

You are not alone, it all says, and it's a message Daniel has been waiting a long time to hear. Most of his life.

Abydos was a bouquet of people, of scents and possibility and sheer noise. But it represented being looked to for wisdom, people who needed him more than he needed them.

Now…now at the SGC…

Daniel swallows, unable to voice it to himself, even in the privacy of his thoughts.

His lashes whisk open, and he's still stuck on an alien planet all by his lonesome for a full half mile. He tries not to panic about that, holding on to the ghosted warmth of the cafeteria as long as he can. It fades through his mind's fingers and he begins to shiver again.

Night has fully fallen by the time Daniel allows himself to fear.

He pushes to his feet inch by inch, ears strained for the sound of that throaty language. But all is still. Surely with the advent of this oppressive darkness, the locals won't be able to see anything, let alone his darker hair through the gloom.

Daniel can barely see his own hand in front of his face.

He loops the bag around his own shoulder and resists the urge to cough, wishing he had some water. His throat crackles like a sandstorm.

Daniel jogs through those strange trees for a minute or two. "Jack?" His hesitant murmur grows in volume. "Jack? Are you—"

A hand appears out of absolutely nowhere.

And latches onto Daniel's bicep.

Daniel stiffens from his pinky toes up to his ears in a motion of repulsion so fast, his body reacts before his mind. The fingers are tighter than rebar and a panting accompanies their sudden presence.

Daniel draws his free arm back for a whopper punch—

"Hey!" Another hand catches his fist. "It's me, Daniel. It's just me."

Daniel trembles with leftover adrenaline and cortisol and whatever else his body's got going on that makes his heart pound so fast. He doesn't uncurl his fist and Jack doesn't let go.

"What's with the Muhammad Ali impression?"

"Jack, you were gone for over thirty minutes."

"It was a tall tree." There's a pastel flash, which Daniel belatedly recognizes are Jack's teeth when he grins. He's standing closer than Daniel expects, probably doing the same thing Daniel is in trying to see his friend better. "Took me almost twelve minutes just to climb to the top of that monster."

"Did you find the gate?"

"Better," says Jack, in a tone that's this side of giddy. "The cavalry's coming. I saw a flare when a wormhole engaged. And there's rifle fire. Come on!"

Jack uses that same hand to yank Daniel into motion again. More darts whistle past their ears within minutes, but Jack's huffing begins to sound suspiciously like laughter.

"We're in the homestretch now, Danny Boy!"

Breathless, Daniel can only join him. This time he does cough amidst his laughter, caring little if they're overheard. For there, up ahead, is a golden bob fighting through the melee.

God bless Sam.

Homestretch. What a funny word for a funny concept. Daniel thinks of those stupid cafeteria trays and Jack's calloused, dulcet fingers, and now he's warm all over even on a hostile alien planet. No flags for them today.

Jack lets go of Daniel's bicep, but his other hand stays firmly around Daniel's, now relaxed enough to twine their fingers. He tugs them towards the gunfire. "Told you I wouldn't leave you."