AN: The sucker punch of Jack's face in this episode broke my heart. Apparently it broke his too. Thus this ficlet was born.

Silence.

"What are you doing here?"

The words echoed in the hangar of his thoughts. His chest squeezed, juiced until only a wrinkly kind of heartache remained.

You're an idiot, Danny Boy.

And in the pitch black of his bedroom, Jack almost believed that. That it was Daniel's fault and not his. That he hadn't ensured Daniel realized how much he meant…how much he was valued…

Silence.

Jack's heart ratcheted up a few notches. The steeple chase of his pulse didn't match each muted breath. His hands bunched in the sheets.

Silence.

Jack choked on it. Static, unmoving, isolated, deathly—

Jack pressed speed dial before he even registered the action. He was suffocating.

Spoken by a trembling man in a rain forest, "What are you doing here?"

It took Jack a long minute to realize the voice wasn't just in his mind.

"Jack?" came the tinny voice—cautious, barely awake—through his cellphone.

This was the third repetition of his name.

"Oh. Hello, Daniel."

Another silence. Only…this time Jack heard the wheels of his friend's mind slowly grinding. Jack relaxed. This silence-sound he knew.

"Jack…it's two in the morning."

"I'm aware of that."

"Did you accidentally dial me?"

"No."

"This is the part where you tell me the reason for said phone call at two am."

"It's time for an Indiana Jones marathon."

Jack could practically see Daniel's mouth working like a fish.

Graceful to the end, Daniel croaked, "What?"

"You know," said Jack. He stood and tugged on a pair of pants. "Harrison Ford a la intrepid explorer? Chase scenes for me, historical monologues for you. It's a win-win, really."

"…Is this some kind of jar head hazing ritual?"

"What? No!" Jack stopped by his truck, coat half on. Chest worryingly tight. "I wouldn't do that, least of all to you. Especially after what happened in Honduras—"

"Because Spielberg didn't get an ounce of his facts straight and I used to get called 'Jones Jackson' in college all the time. Personally, I think it was the glasses."

And Jack chuckled. For what reason, he had no idea. He just kept going until his knuckles weren't white around the wheel.

Some of the suffocation or hysteria must have crept into his voice, because Daniel's next words were very soft.

"On second thought, your offer sounds tempting. Unfortunately, I'm not permitted to drive."

"Well, then it's a good thing I'm outside you're apartment."

"You…what?"

Jack hung up and tromped the two flights to his friend's door. He knocked gently. Daniel answered it with owl eyes, no shirt on and holding the wall for support. The bulky white leg cast still looked gaudy against his already pale skin.

Jack scrambled inside for the man's crutches, glasses, and several changes of clothes.

"Am I being kidnapped?" Daniel teased.

Jack didn't laugh. He wouldn't laugh at kidnapping jokes for a long time. "You shouldn't be staying alone anyway. Not with these painkillers. Does Janet know?"

The silence was answer enough. It remained for the short drive to Jack's house.

Daniel fell asleep against the truck window, his nose buried in a sweatshirt. No cars littered the early morning streets. Jack felt they'd blipped to another time, a ghost town where only they existed.

"What are you doing here?"

Jack's breath caught. He firmed his chin and kept his eyes straight ahead. The words haunted the space between his lungs.

After depositing Daniel on the couch with a hoard of blankets and pillows, Jack shoved in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The opening credits rolled and he plopped down next to his burrowing archaeologist, still trying to make a nest on Jack's couch.

"My bed was comfier," he complained.

"Company's better," said Jack.

"Yeah." Daniel finally stilled, a goofy smile peeking over the blankets. "It is."

Then he caught sight of the screen. "Jack. Seriously? You're going to make me watch this after Nick and the glowing giants and me out of phase and—"

"Fine!" Jack threw up his hands. He made a show of switching out the DVDs. "Raiders of the Lost Ark it is."

Daniel mumbled.

"What was that?"

"The gaping plot hole," said Daniel. He itched at the bandage on his thigh. Jack grasped his fingers and pulled them away. "You do know that, barring ridiculous glyphs that have no relevance or cultural attachment to the temple they're found in, this movie has one of the worst plot holes in film history?"

"Huh," said Jack. "The things you learn at three in the morning."

"Liar," groused Daniel, still smiling.

And as Daniel blurted out inaccuracies, satirical commentary, and something about pictorial phonetics—

Jack finally breathed.

The chatter filled his house, the awful silence.

At some point during a fight sequence, Daniel's head nodded to the side. Jack removed his glasses. Then all was quiet.

Jack muted the television. Its light cast Daniel's face in lurid shadows. Purple sleeplessness pockmarked each eye and finger shaped bruises marred his cheek. A battery burn ringed his collarbone where the sweater slipped down.

Jack's stomach roiled, clenching and unclenching. He set a feather light palm over Daniel's chest. The man didn't wake, his body dead to the world. Each steady inhalation lifted Jack's hand up and down.

"What are you doing here?"

How could you ask such a thing, Daniel?

Jack had never felt such crestfallen shock as when Daniel asked that question. He wouldn't soon forget the wild look in Daniel's eye or the incredulous disbelief that Jack would cross continents for him.

I've crossed galaxies.

"Thanks for humoring an old man, Danny."

And maybe it was selfish, but Jack felt worlds better with him here. Breathing. Alive.

For the first time in seventy-two hours, Jack's eyelids grew heavy. He filched a corner of the blanket. On the cusp of sleep, a fidgeting hand found Jack's arm.

"J'ck?"

"Danny?" he whispered.

"What are you doing in my apartment?"

Jack managed a laugh. "You're at my place, Hawking. You disobeyed Janet, remember? Don't know how you managed that, actually."

"Took the bus," Daniel slurred.

Jack settled back into the cushions. Unbelievable.

"This is better than my empty apartment," said Daniel.

"I'm glad. You can stay as long as you like."

"Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for coming for me."

The words pierced Jack's throat, and then opened into something that left him in awe. Beautiful. Jack stared at the hand on his wrist, Adam's apple working.

"I'll always come for you, Daniel."

The man caught Jack's gaze, an apology swimming somewhere in there. Jack nodded. Daniel's eyes fluttered shut and his lips turned up in a warm, faint grin. Jack followed his lead, patting the hand until he could feel an artery under his fingertips.

He slept.

Written in 2016.