A/N: Okay, my fine readers, here is another chapter. I hope you like it.

Present

"You became friends?" Eleanor asks me.

"As I said before my relationship with Irwin progressed quickly in that short period of time," I tell her. "After that meeting in my tent we became good friends. At first he continued to use my injuries to see me but after a few days he stopped. We had a routine going for a week; he'd stop by my tent when he wasn't busy or I'd go over to the medical tent and help him out when I had nothing to do."

"Didn't he know other people there?"

"Oh sure, it's not like he was around me all the time or anything, but I think he noticed that I didn't know anyone else there. See Irwin was the kind of person to reach out to people who seem to be rejected by most people. He was a good guy with a kind heart," I say. "He was also around me because he could tell that I was someone he could trust. See with him, he would reach out to someone but wouldn't really let anyone in."

My daughter's eyebrow goes up. "So he let you in?" she asks.

"In a way, I actually should say because he trusted me, he would open up to me a little."

She looks at me thoughtfully for a moment before she asks, "Did him and Daniel ever meet?"

I smile and nod. "Yes they met alright. They became friends as well, but it was interesting at first"

Sixteen Years Ago

Irwin and I were walking back to our tents with all of our gear on; we were just getting back from a practice run on the beach.

"How long do you think it will be until we are over there?" he asked me. I shifted my rifle in my arm before I looked at him.

I shrugged the best I could and said, "I dunno. Could be tomorrow, could be next week, hell knowing our luck it could be a year from now."

He looked at me and shook his head slightly.

"What?" I ask him.

"You," he says.

I frown slightly and then ask, "What about me?"

"You have to be one of the biggest pessimists I know," he says.

That made me smirk. "Oh really? So when do you think they will send us over there?"

He shrugged as well. "I'm not sure, but the longer we are over here the more time we have to prepare and the more time we have to prepare the less people who will be killed."

"Hmmm, well personally while I do believe the training will help, I don't think any amount of training will completely prepare us for what is going to happen there."

This caused him to frown slightly and say, "There you go again."

"Irwin, I'm not being a pessimist. I'm stating facts," I tell him. "And here is another fact; I'm getting tired of eating sand every day for lunch, and hauling my gear up this beach."

Irwin's frown disappeared and he started to smile. "What, sand not a usual part of your diet?" he teased.

"No, defiantly not," I said smiling as well. "If I never see another piece of sand after this is all over with it'll be too soon. This beach has lost its allure and now all I want to do is get the hell off of it."

"Well personally I feel you will get your wish soon," he said. "I mean it's not hard to see that the CO's are on edge. Something's going to happen, and it will be soon."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Granted I just hope it happens after I get my glasses. If I go over there without them, I'm as good as dead."

"It shouldn't take much longer to get them."

"I hope you're right," I said "I'm so sick and tired of not being able to see." Then added with a grin, "Granted I'm glad that I haven't been able to see what I've been eating."

He started to laugh and said, "Are you sure? I would think that if you could see something you wouldn't eat it. If you can't, does that mean that you have been eating it?" He got serous for a moment and looked at me. "Am I going to have to check you for food poisoning?"

That caused both of us to laugh. It was actually funny in a depressing sort of way. The food here wasn't the best, granted the food that I have eaten since I had been in the army had always been lacking one thing, flavor.

"No, no, I think I will be alright. However, if I start getting sick you may want to check," I said him, still with a grin plastered to my face.

"I'll keep that in mind," he told me and we arrived at his tent. "Okay, I meet you over at your tent after I'm finished getting this stuff off. I think your nose is pretty much healed and if it is, I want to get that bandage off of it."

"K doc," I said and headed off towards my own tent. Making my way around the people and tents in front of me was a little challenging, it had been since I had smashed my glasses. I had gotten better at it though and I had just reached my tent when I heard a familiar voice.

"Antony, over here!"

My eyes went wide; I would know that voice anywhere. I looked around with absolutely no luck. There was no way I was going to see anyone who wasn't in my 2 and a half feet radius.

"Hey over here!" I heard again. This time I looked to my left and saw Daniel's blurred figure.

"Bout time you were sent over here," I told him as I squinted up at him to see him better. I had to hold myself back from giving him a hug. Even though James wasn't there, it still would have been way too awkward.

"Yea', got word of it yesterday. They shipped all of us over here."

"All of you?" I asked him incredulously. "Okay, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what that means."

"Ya the invasion will be soon."

We both went quiet for a moment. Even though I said things to Irwin about wanting to get off this beach, a part of me, a very big part of me was terrified of the idea.

Daniel was the one who broke the silence. "What happened to your glasses and your face?" he asked. Even though I couldn't see his face, I still could feel his eyes on me.

I smiled slightly and said, "Well that one is a bit of a story."

"You gonna tell me?"

"Yeah, step into my tent and let me get out of this gear first."

"After you," he said. I could tell he was smiling.

I just smiled back and went into my tent. "Well ain't this roomy?" Sarcasm was clearly oozing from his words.

I was taking off my gear as I chuckled. "Glad you like it. The army will supply you with one exactly like it."

"Fantastic."

I looked at his direction, still not seeing his face clearly, and then grinned. "Hey, would you rather sleep outside with nothing over top of you? Think about what you say, I know from experience that it hardly ever stops raining here."

"Great, it ain't going to be a picnic here is it?"

My grin disappeared a little but I was still smiling. "No it isn't," I told him. "My CO was far from joking when he said this was going to be worse here."

"Speaking of which, how did you get your nose broken? There another James here or somethin'?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Nah, nothing like that. This is from hand to hand combat training," I told him and then shook my head while laughing. "Somebody thought it was a good idea to pair me with the person who had to be the biggest guy on this whole beach."

"You are kidding me," he said.

"No I ain't. I wish I was. I'm getting really tired of not being able to see."

Curiosity seemed had gotten a hold of him. "How bad is your eyesight? I meant I know you've always worn the glasses but I've never known how bad it is."

"Bad enough that my CO banned me from practicing with my rifle," I told him.

"Wow, you're joking," he said again.

I shook my head. "I don't even know if I hit the target when he asked me to shoot the last time."

"Wow." It was clearly unbelievable to him. He knew how well I could shoot, so it was a little hard to imagine me not being able to shoot. "Ya know something?" he finally asked once he had processed the previous information.

"What?"

"Well, you are gonna have to be very careful with the new glasses. If they break when you are over there you are going to be in a lot of trouble."

This was something I had thought over and I knew he was right. I just had to hope nothing happened to them. "You're right Daniel. Let's just hope nothing happens to them."

I saw him shake his head. "Hopping don't do much. You need to pray about it."

I grinned slightly. "Oh don't worry about that," I told him. "I already did that when they first broke."

I could almost swear I saw him grinning but I didn't have a chance to say anything.

"Antony are you in there…oh I'm sorry I didn't know you had someone here." It was Irwin coming to check on my nose. I was a little surprised because I hadn't seen him become flustered before. "If it's a bad time, I'll come back later."

It clicked then. He just didn't want to intrude. It made me smile slightly; he was really a nice guy. "No don't worry about it doc, you aren't intruding on anything. Besides I want to get this bandage off already. It's starting to get annoying."

He still hesitated a moment before asking, "Are you sure you want me to with him here?"

Another thing clicked in my head. Either he had the doctor patience confidentiality issue in his head, or he really didn't trust Daniel. I suspected it could be the first but it was probably mostly the second one.

I just smiled and shrugged. "It's not like you're going to be checking anything embarrassing, so I don't mind. He's seen the majority of my broken noses. Actually, he had to drag me to a doctor to get one taken care of once."

We all started laughing a little. "It's a good thing I did to," Daniel said while still laughing.

"Hey, it wasn't that serious," I argued. The laughing had stopped but everyone was still smiling.

"Oh really?" he asked. "Your nose was smashed and it wouldn't stop bleeding."

I shook my head. "It would have stopped eventually."

Even though I couldn't see Daniel roll his eyes, I could imagine him doing it. "You wouldn't even have gone even if it was," he said and then turned in Irwin's direction. "He really doesn't enjoy going to doctors. How did you manage to get him fixed up?"

"He came to me on his own free will."

"Really?" Daniel asked surprised.

"Yeah really," I said slightly annoyed. "It was serous then. I had just gotten the hell beat out of me by a tank. I had no idea how much damage he had done."

This caused another round of laughter to go though my tent.

"So if he gets hurt again, I can trust you to bring him to me?" Irwin asked, causing them to laugh even more. I, however, was not laughing.

"Sure I'll bring him to ya, or at least bring you to him."

Irwin nodded. "That will work."

I folded my arms in front of me and my eyes narrowed into slits.

"You know, I don't think he's very happy with us," Daniel said.

"Damn right, I'm not happy!" I told them. Once again they started laughing. "You two are conspiring against me!"

This only caused them to laugh harder. I tried to continue scowling at them, but that soon failed and I started to smile slightly.

"You know it's your own fault for becoming friends with a doctor, right?" Irwin asked me, still smiling.

"It wouldn't have mattered anyway," I said, and then jerked my head in Daniel's direction. "He would have dragged me to one of you medics anyway."

"Better believe it," Daniel said. "I know full well that you're not invincible, so when you get hurt you are going to be dragged to one."

"I know I'm not invincible," I said and folded my arms in front of my chest again.

"Then why don't you go to doctors when you need to?"

I had to think about this one for a moment. The main reason why I didn't like to go to them is because I thought it would blow my cover, but I couldn't tell them that, so I settled for the next best thing.

"Well because I'm really not fond of doctors," I said and then quickly added. "No offence Irwin."

"None taken," he told me. "But why don't you like them? I think I'm a half decent doctor."

I had to think about my answer again, I knew I was digging a hole that I would soon be stuck in, but I had to answer him.

"Once again, no offence to you but I really just don't trust them."

"You trust me don't you?" he asked. It was an innocent question but one that frustrated me to no end. I couldn't say no, in this short period of time we had become good friends, but if I said yes and later on my cover was blown, how could I ever look them in the face?

I had no choice; I had to go with what was the truth. "Yes I trust you," I looked at Daniel, "I trust both of you."

It was odd for a moment. It was just completely silent, like they were taking in that information. One second it was that strange silence and the next it was broken.

"Well that's good cause when I go to take this bandage off you have to trust me," Irwin said.

I frowned slightly. "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked him.

"Just hold still," he said. "Or I'll have Daniel hold you down."

"Hey that isn't funny!" I exclaimed.

He chuckled a little and put his hands on my shoulders. "Just hold still," he said soothingly, as he began to take the bandage off my nose. After it was off he smiled and said, "For a person who is used to having broken noses, you are sure easy to scare."

When he said that, I felt very foolish. He was able to toy with me so easily, both of them were.

"Okay, it looks alright, a little crooked but alright."

I frowned at him and this caused him to say, "Hey, I'm just telling the truth. Broken noses never heal back to the way they use to be, there will always be something that isn't perfect, and if you've had as many as you've said it's not going to come close.

"Actually, it looks like its set better than it was the last time," Daniel said. "You did a good job…eh what is your name?"

Irwin stuck his hand out which Daniel took. "Irwin Wade," he told him.

"Daniel Jackson, it's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you to."

I could see that both of them were smiling, and I smiled to. The two friends I had in this place didn't hate each other. That was always a good thing.

A/N: Okay so I'll admit that I'm not that happy with this chapter. It could have been a lot better but I wasn't sure how to have Jackson and Wade meet one another, so I got this. I hope you liked it and there should be another chapter up soon. That also means there should be one for all my other stories as well. BTW I need to know if any of the characters were too oc or not. If they were, please send me a message or review. I'm really having a rough time trying to make sure they are in character.