It was the kind of day that made Daniel glad to be out of the mountain and on his own world, no matter how restless he felt. He was sitting on his balcony. The wind was blowing away the heat of the sun, and blowing in a haze across the city. The thermometer on the railing read fifty-two degrees. He had a bottled water, bare feet, and three books open; one book on his knee, two on the small table beside him; one of Seth's holy books, discovered at his compound; Spiegel's Die Erzählung vom Streite des Horus und Seth; and a thick document, printed and bound, of the transcripts from the interviews of Seth's cult members, its cover stamped in dark ink: "Classified / Red-Alpha-SGC."

It was odd--when he was caught up in a mission he rarely gave thought to the fact that they, SG-1, were killing off the ancient gods of Earth, beings who however evil carried with them thousands of years of history, memories of cities and peoples long since dust. It should have stirred him to regret, but even the loss of knowledge wasn't enough to make him regret the death of a Gou'ald. And yet still, now, months after the liberation of Seth's cult, he read their hack bible of legends and religious codes and thought of a hundred questions he would have asked if he'd had the opportunity.

This was a feeling he knew well, a low-grade fever of frustration that had become chronic during his three years with the SGC. Questions unasked, unanswered. Worlds visited and never revisited. The constraints of time, resources, military exigencies--it was the frustration of his thwarted calling, but it was also something more. He was used to handling fragments of the past, but at some point his own present life had broken down into fragments and he didn't know when or how or why. The fracture may have begun with the loss of Sha're, but sometimes he thought it traced back much earlier.

He sat on his balcony and stared out at an ordinary Earth city and felt not entirely of his world. Pieces of him remained elsewhere. Bones of his bones, flesh of his flesh; bits of his mind. He wasn't sure who he'd become during the last several years. He called himself a scientist, he acted as a soldier. He was a widower, he was...a seeker. The imperatives of each role pulled at him like the four winds and the center did not hold; there only remained a vague feeling he should have done something different at each defining moment of his life. He'd moved from obsession to obsession; and now he searched for his wife's son, but his passion was guttering and his heart was no more than lukewarm.

Daniel squinted down at the white pages open on his lap, then shut the book with disgust and tossed it carelessly aside. He leaned forward and took off his glasses, rubbed his face. Jack would say, For crying out loud, Daniel, get a grip. Why don't you eat something, you'll feel like a new man. Jack as Jewish mother never failed to annoy Daniel, but when the annoyance wore off, he usually discovered that he was eating a sandwich. He'd learned over time to do as Jack said, and in stray moments was touched by a sense of relief, to know that responsibility lay elsewhere and not all decisions were his.

And in inverted moments where the large became small, and the small large, it seemed to Daniel that he was willing to let everything be taken out of his hands; he would let Jack order him to eat just as he would let Teal'c shoot and kill his wife.

For a moment now he felt it: a desire to relinquish all agency and all volition. Then he rose from his chair and walked over to lean on the balcony. He gazed down at the street, felt a breeze touch his hair, watched a dove feather past, and the weight of his world tipped back into place. One moment to the next. That was how he lived now.

Late autumn was closer to winter these days; cold and bemused by his own bare feet, he shook off his lethargy and carried his chair and books inside. When he went to examine the contents of his fridge, he found nearly bare shelves: a carton of milk, two bananas, an open can of soup that he'd eaten half of, he couldn't remember when. He pried up its lid, sniffed, winced, and threw it in the trash.

He could leave the apartment. It was a novel thought. Beyond his apartment lay a neighborhood and beyond that the city. He'd traveled all his life, seen more of the world than most people and certainly more of the galaxy, but Colorado Springs seemed too big to navigate some days.

"Money," he murmured to himself, and found his wallet, in which was cash; a surprise. Dead presidents didn't travel well through the gate, and he could go months without using an ATM. He had an idea in mind of finding someplace to eat nearby, where he could get served food and not have to worry about the details of cooking and cleaning dishes. Before this, he'd never taken time to scout the neighborhood, not since initially moving into the apartment. He had a nebulous sense that restaurants existed, though, close enough to walk to.

He walked to the door and had to turn around to don shoes, started out again and then decided to grab a jacket, made another half-attempt before realizing he should take his house key. On the last pass, he grabbed a book off the shelf nearly at random, recognizing it as one he'd had for ten years and been meaning to read for just that long.

On his block, the bare trees spoke of winter. He passed the upscale laundromat, the C.P.A.'s office, the market, turned the corner and kept walking. He already felt bored and out of place, a man who'd lost touch with the world. He opened his book to the middle and read as he walked.

An enormous disquiet made me tremble making even the slightest gestures. I was afraid of going mad, not of madness itself, but going mad. My body was a latent scream. My heart beat as if were sobbing.

"Sorry," Daniel said distractedly as he brushed shoulders with a passer-by. "Sorry," he said to another, moments later. "Latent scream," he muttered to himself, and flashed briefly on a vision of Sha're, trapped in her own body and unable to speak. She was nothing but memories now, memories that waxed into pain at stray moments like this, then waned and bled into his ordinary life.

He was nothing but memories now.

The end of the block met him suddenly and he stopped by instinct at the nearness of traffic, then looked up and around. There was a three-story brick building on the opposite corner, with big windows and what appeared to be a posted menu. He walked over when the light changed, and peered at the offerings. There were sandwiches. Good enough.

He entered and stood inside the door, book open again as he read brief snatches; he might have stood there three minutes before someone said, "Just sit anywhere," followed by another, thinner voice whose echo was almost too low to make out.

Daniel blinked and raised his head with a frown. He glanced around at the restaurant's mostly empty tables, which were, he noticed, rather awkwardly tall, and then went to sit at the bar.

"No maitre'd," said the bartender. "Just little old me."

"Yes. Sorry." Daniel took a stool.

"Want to see a menu?"

"Yes."

The bartender handed over a laminated sheet of paper, which Daniel placed on top of his book and studied. Offered a drink, he ordered iced tea. The menu was daunting in its options and the names of the sandwiches were odd, and he lost himself in the printed contents, thinking of things that bore no relation to food and everything to hunger. Meals he'd shared with Sha're; the touch of Ke'ra's lips to his, in that brief, bittersweet time before he learned her previous identity.

Lately his mind wandered.

If a B.L.T. can provoke reminiscences of your dead wife, you may be insane after all, Daniel told himself, and the thought was dryer than dry; it was like sand shifting underfoot as he tried to remain upright.

When the bartender came again, Daniel ordered a ham and cheese sandwich and fries, without once making eye contact, and flipped to another page in his book.

Today I dragged my feet and my great fatigue through the streets. My soul is reduced to a tied-up skein, and what I am or was, which is what I am, has forgotten its name.

Apparently I am the eternal protagonist, thought Daniel. He gave up browsing the book's entries and turned to its introduction, from which point he began to read steadily and with full attention. Food appeared, he said no to the question of mustard, and after several minutes he noticed the plate again and began to eat one-handedly without looking up.

"Everything okay?" said the voice behind the bar.

"Fine," he said absently.

"You keep doing that, and you'll draw quite a crowd, honey."

Daniel looked up blinking. "Sorry?"

"That untouchable act drives the men wild."

After a moment's blank stare, Daniel focused on the man for the first time, noticing his bleached curls, thin beaded necklace, hoop earrings. He looked around the restaurant, craning his neck and then turning on his stool--the place was still nearly empty, but there were a few men sitting at tables who immediately made eye contact.

"Oh," he said. "Is this--"

The bartender raised his brows in a high, inquisitive arch.

"This is a, uh, gay bar," said Daniel, discomforted and mildly intrigued.

The bartender put his hands on his hips and made a broad assessment of the room, then said theatrically, "Yes, it is! It is a gay bar!" He laughed.

Daniel looked at his half-eaten plate, and his book, and frowned. Any anthropological sophistication was drying up with the realization he might be trespassing out of his element. "Should I, uh, should I go?"

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't you dare. You sit right there. Eat. I'll drive off any wolves that bother you, Little Red. Or is that Big Red?"

"Oh, I think I should go," Daniel said, standing immediately and reaching for his wallet.

The bartender waved his hands in a down, down motion. "No, no. Look, I'm smacking myself." He slapped his own wrist. "See? Sit, eat. I'll behave."

"Um, thank you." Daniel paused, rubbed the side of his neck, then retook his seat. "The food is very good."

"I'll tell Carl. He'll be very pleased." The bartender winked.

Daniel nodded, and went back to his book.

"You read Spanish?" asked the bartender, not moving.

Daniel's brows tightened in mild resentment as he was forced to look up again. "Actually, I do. This is Portuguese, though."

"Brainy type, aren't you?"

By writing what I feel, I can cool this febrile sensibility of mine.

"So I'm told," said Daniel.

"It's got snow," said Jack, holding the screenshot to examine, before tossing it away. "It's winter here. Why go someplace with snow? Isn't there a world out there where the Asgard set up the gate on a nice beach? Wouldn't that have been smart?"

"I'm not sure the Asgard necessarily have the same fascination for sand and surf as we do, Jack. Or at least...as you do."

Jack pulled a small face, but it was noticeably restrained for him, even gentle. They were all still tip-toeing around Daniel, and he hated it, except that it meant he didn't have to talk.
 
"Well, there's P4Y-990," said Sam, passing down another set of print-outs. Daniel took them from her, studied the images and graphs. "It has what may be an indigenous pre-sentient species and a balmy three-day mean of seventy degrees."

"Now we're talking," said Jack, leaning back in his chair, hands laced behind his head.

Daniel flipped through the print-outs. "This is the species--this, uh, lizard?" He frowned at what appeared to be a stone tool in one webbed appendage, then looked up at Sam, annoyed but trying not to show it. "Why didn't I see video for this?"

"Sorry, Daniel. Sergeant Weaver should have downloaded it into the system by now. I'll check with her after the meeting."

"She's an idiot," Daniel said with dismissive impatience, returning to flip through the sheaf of prints he held.

"She's new," Jack pointed out quietly.

"The acquisition of any new skill takes time and practice, Daniel Jackson."

Daniel quirked his eyebrows and stared around at the rest of his team through the barrier of his glasses. "She's an idiot," he repeated, having heard nothing to alter his opinion.

"She's a certified AV Systems Technician, Daniel," Sam said, irritation entering her voice. "And she was accepted for assignment to the SGC after a rigorous interview process, just like everyone else."

"She'll be here six weeks, tops," he estimated, bored with the subject, his attention directed to the trace mineral readout he held.

"Daniel, that's just rude!" Sam said sharply.

He looked up at her, noticing the color in her cheeks and the snap to her eyes. So much for tip-toeing. He was already over the peak of his annoyance, though, and her comment genuinely confused him. "Why? How? She's not even in the room."

"You're making assumptions about her performance based on a month of work with extra-terrestrial data that she's seeing for the first time."

"No," he clarified pointedly, "I'm making an analysis of her performance based on a month of work with systems she's been trained on."

"Everyone has a ramp-up time here, Daniel," Sam said. "It's factored in."

"And I'm factoring it," he said.

"Whoa, whoa," said Jack, leaning forward and holding out his hands to call a halt while Teal'c looked on head cocked, silently intrigued and perhaps concerned. "Enough." Jack's face was not pleased, and he gave them both a serious eyeball before focusing on Sam. "Daniel's right," he said in a flat voice. "She squeaked through because the other two candidates failed to pass security clearance. She probably won't last."

"Sir," began Sam, eyes widening; she was clearly appalled.

"Carter. She'll get her chance, and it'll be a fair one. Don't worry."

Her jaw tightened, and she looked down as if forcing herself to. There was a silence.

"The, uh, the lizard looks interesting, Sam," Daniel said by way of apology. He handed the data across the table to Jack. "Very, um--"

"Green," said Jack, at the same moment Daniel did. He tipped the picture, then tipped his head, then tipped the picture again. "You know, is it just me or does he kinda look like Kermit?"

"Yes," said Daniel. "Yes, I thought so too."

Daniel, at a loss again for food, went in search of someplace to eat. When he'd circumnavigated his block once, and dismissed gyros and carry-out Chinese, he found himself once more on the corner of West and Milbourne, across from the bar where he'd eaten the previous week. It was called Dandy's, he noticed.

He crossed at the light, stared at the window menu again, then looked down the street on both sides, seeing only boutiques and bookstores. He remembered that the sandwich had been good, thought oh, what the hell, and went inside.

A lean young man in a white sleeveless tee-shirt and blue-jeans was mopping the already glossy hardwood floor and singing along with whatever played on his headphones. The tables were as empty as last time, and the same bartender was there.

"Hello, Portuguese," the man said, as Daniel approached the bar.

"What?" Then, as his mind caught up: "Oh. No. I'm not Portuguese." He sat down.

"That's what they all say." The bartender handed him a menu. "Iced tea, right?"

"Yes, thanks." Daniel stared intently at the menu, flipped it, read up and down the columns with no real interest. "Number eleven," he ordered when the bartender returned.

"What's it today?" the man asked.

Daniel refocused on him. "Number eleven," he repeated, voice rising tentatively at the end.

"The book."

"Uh, it's Weidenbach's hieroglyphical and cultural dictionary of the Naqada II period."

"Well, of course it is. Silly me."

Daniel blinked, then immersed himself in the text, unable to contemplate continuing a mundane conversation that might involve trying to explain, and evade explaining, what he did for a living.

He ate what the bartender put in front of him, and was halfway through the meal before he noticed something amiss. He stopped and stared at the sandwich he was holding, one moment before he'd been about to take another bite. "I thought I ordered the crabcake sandwich."

"You wouldn't want that, honey, trust me. This is better, isn't it?"

"Well, it's...it's good." Daniel studied what was in his hand. "What is it?"

"House special. A Reuben to die for, as so many of them are. Corned beef, imported swiss, homemade rye, the works."

"Do you usually just make up your own orders?"

"That's why they pay me the big bucks. I know what the mens want, when they wants it."

"And what if I hadn't liked it?" Daniel said, rolling the words dryly in his mouth.

"Then it'd be on me." The bartender flashed a bright, flirty grin.
 
"Ah," said Daniel with a bland absence of further comment, and returned to his food.

He'd cocooned himself in his office with the ceiling lights off, and put one of Jack's filched opera CDs on the little stereo, to play low. He should have closed the door, perhaps, but his wing was quiet enough that he usually sacrificed certain privacy for ventilation.

Jack wandered in a few hours after Daniel had finished his mission report and sent it zipping off through the network. He moseyed around the counters, hands in pockets, picked up a Zigani flute, examined it, blew, then set it back down.

"How about those lizards," he said finally.

"They were quite...frisky," said Daniel, needing a moment to choose the word.

"Oh, yeah."

Daniel considered Jack, trying to determine how tired he was, what his mood was. High tide, not low, he decided after he'd flicked his gaze across Jack's face and the set of his shoulders.

"Just so you know, I'm going to formally recommend that we expand non-critical pre-mission surveys to a week," Daniel said. "And that they redeploy the MALP for another full week when more than three weeks have elapsed since the original scan."

"Saw that," said Jack. Which meant he'd read to the end of Daniel's report. Or skipped to the end, thought Daniel realistically. Jack idled, toyed with a rock. "You'll have my back-up. I'll attach it when you write the proposal. They'll bitch about projected loss, of course. Allocation of LRE's, cost of man hours, blah blah blah. Military is full of penny-pinchers." He looked up, eyeing Daniel. "How's your stomach?"

"It's settling."

"Good. 'Cause I was thinking we could order out for pizza. You in?"

"I could eat."

"Carter wants anything with artichokes."

"I've noticed that women like artichokes," Daniel said, thinking back to his university days and pizzas past to dredge that up.

"Huh," said Jack. He sounded skeptical.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing," Jack replied, but the facile speed of his reply indicated he was clearly up for yanking Daniel's chain. Daniel's eyes narrowed and he refused to engage.

"So we'll call you for the pizza party later. Gonna watch Aliens in the rec room."

"Teal'c really likes that, doesn't he."

"Only time I ever hear him laugh." Jack stilled, tipped his head. "Not sure if we should worry."

Daniel lifted and dropped his brows, said nothing. He was wired and ready to get out of the mountain. Twenty-four hours could be a hell of a long time, especially if you spent any of it with people closer than family, who'd spent the last week driving you half-crazy.

"Come up now," suggested Jack, breaking into Daniel's thoughts. "Hang out. Smuggled beer, televised sports. Your kind of scene."

"Um, no. I have some work to finish up. Thanks."

When there was no response after a minute, he looked up to find Jack watching him, his eyes steady and unguarded. Their gazes met and held in a stretching silence, but Daniel couldn't stand much impromptu intimacy. "What?" he said, breaking the moment.

"Nothing," Jack said lightly. "Nothing." He straightened up and moseyed out again, calling over his shoulder, "We'll call you, now. Pizza." He held up a finger of warning, back still turned as he walked away. "Better come running or Teal'c will have stolen all the pepperoni."

But it was just such certainties that helped keep the universe in check.

Daniel walked in to the bar and took his usual seat. "Hi, Jessie."

"Daniel, my brother," said the bartender with effusive good cheer. "Where have you been?"

"Oh, I...I took a little trip."

"Well, I hope it wasn't a bad trip, honey."

"No, it was okay." No deaths, just the loss of a twenty-thousand dollar sensor, total failure to achieve a treaty with sapient lizards, and occasional vomiting. Now, three days after mission closure, he was finally feeling human again.

Jessie set an ice tea in front of him. "You want a Reuben," he said. "No, wait." He touched his temple and communed with the kitchen gods. "I am so wrong. It's a cheeseburger. You must be hungry."

"I am, actually. Starving."

"Swiss cheese?"

"Blue."

"You devil, you."

He disappeared with a happy swish, and Daniel opened his folder and studied the photographs with keen interest. He supposed he shouldn't really be reading semi-classified material in public, but on the other hand, snapshots of alien cuneiform would mean little to anyone outside a small handful of scholars. And perhaps Jessie, who came back later to set his lunch down and said, "Reading a picture book today? Well, you go, girl. We all need a break once in a while."

"Yes, I guess we do," said Daniel mildly, and he felt restlessness touch him as Jessie strolled off to wait on a table. He chewed at his burger every few minutes and tried to lose himself in the script, drawing word by word on a mental dictionary of Elamite that was sketchy at best. "The divine," he said under his breath. "No, the mighty...the mighty god, who created himself with the exhalation of life...ah, yes. Good old Ra. My, you do get around--"

"Hello," said a nearby voice.

Startled from his reading, Daniel looked up to see a man standing next to him, with short dark hair, brown eyes, and a faint smile. He wore a knitted sweater and tweedy slacks, and looked somehow like a man who had no problem with money.

"Uh, hello," Daniel said cautiously. "I'm not gay."

The man's smile grew slightly more distinct at the edges, and he gestured toward the bar. "Can I borrow your ketchup?"

"Oh. Sorry. Ketchup. Yes. Please. I'm, uh, done with it, actually. You can have it."

The man took the bottle, gave his thanks, and returned to his table. Daniel squinted over his shoulder with a tiny frown of embarrassment, then went back to his book, twitchy and put off his concentration.

Jessie returned and leaned across the bar. "That man bothering you? Want me to go over there, tell him you're bad news? I'll make up a great story about a horrible STD and a psychotic wife."

Daniel's cheeks heated slightly. "Um, no. That won't be necessary. I'm fine."

"Yes, you are, darling. And that's your problem."

Her heart turned away in disgust from the millions of the men, and she chose for herself the millions of the gods, Daniel read.

It was always something.

"You're always reading," the man said.

Daniel glanced up obliquely. He was torn between the irritation that all bookish types feel at such remarks, and an unsettled sense of gravity changing around him; a feeling that was not entirely unwelcome.

"You're always borrowing my ketchup," he rejoined warily, then gave a faint, quick smile to take away any sting.

The man dipped his head and gave his own smile. "Guilty." He nodded at the book. "What are you reading?"

"Rumi. He was a Persian poet from the thirteenth century." Daniel closed the book, taking care to make it look natural and not like a rebuff. During the last month or so he'd exchanged words with the man three times, no longer than ten seconds on each occasion. It seemed like the time to be sociable might have come.

"You're a poet," said the man, as if he'd had confirmed something he'd already guessed.

Daniel restrained his impatience at the banal logic. "Um, no. Just reading one."

"I'm Mark," said the man, extending a hand, which Daniel had to turn on his stool in order to shake.

"Daniel."

"You've had me curious," Mark said.

"Oh?"

"I thought you might be a writer, a teacher."

"I'm an archaeologist," he said, then bluntly redirected: "What do you do?"

"I own a coffee shop."

"I like coffee," said Daniel, without thinking. His own inanity left him amazed. It was Jack's fault, he thought. He was too accustomed to relating on Jack's lazy wavelength; he'd forgotten how to talk like a normal person. Or maybe this was how normal people talked. Disturbing possibility.

"Well, at least we have something in common," Mark was saying.

Daniel's cheeks grew warm, and he had to look down from the other man's direct gaze.

"Will you have lunch with me?" Mark asked, gesturing at his table where his meal already sat.

"I don't, uh, I don't know. I should--"
 
"Have lunch with me."

Daniel felt something stir in him at the simple words, which were not an order, and not quite a request.

"Okay."

He brought his food over to the other man's table, trying with difficulty to ignore Jessie's sotto-voce comments of encouragement ("Work it, girlfriend!"), and was forced by the table's size to put his book on a chair with his coat. Well, he was going to talk, wasn't he? Normal, man to man conversation. Probably about sports, he thought with pessimism.

But Mark didn't talk about sports, except for a brief discussion of recreational skiing. Mark, Daniel quickly came to realize, was a civic-minded kind of guy. He talked about downtown development, and preservation, and the wonders of Colorado Springs, and wasn't it a shame about the fire that had just swept across some historic depot. This was absorbing enough that they began to talk about the razing of Victorian housing in the commercial district, and recent renovations of city landmarks. Mark seemed to know a lot of local history, but it dawned on Daniel slowly that perhaps his conversation was also an attempt to serve up what he thought an archaeologist might want to talk about.

It was strangely flattering, and Daniel's mind connected the dots as they meandered from point to point in the conversation. He made eye contact when Mark did, and read the language of his body as he shifted and leaned forward in his chair, as he moved his hands, as he brushed a napkin across his mouth. It all added up to something very familiar, like the offers of sex he and the team still occasionally got when traveling to gated worlds, but with even fewer potential consequences--assuming they went about it the right way, he supposed. Daniel never accepted such offers on missions, and couldn't recall the last time when the terms of sex had been simple and safely meaningless.

When they were done with lunch, Mark asked, "Do you want to get out of here?"

Daniel hesitated for a moment, holding the other's open gaze, then said, "Sure."

They walked out together and stood on the sidewalk in the crisp air. They looked at each other, and down, and off to the side, Mark with shy, crooked smiles, and Daniel with frowns and inner doubts.

"My car is just down the street," Mark said, waving a hand.

Daniel turned that over in his mind. "I live nearby." And then he took a small breath. "I'm not--I'm not really looking for--"

"Me neither."

They went to his apartment, and Mark took off his coat and looked around and made a few appreciative remarks that barely registered on Daniel. They went to his bedroom next and Mark took his shoulders in what seemed like a prelude to a kiss and instead of kissing him right away said, "I'm clean."

"Um," said Daniel. "Okay. Oh, right. I'm clean, too."

And instead of kissing him, Mark squeezed his arms then went down on his knees.

Oh, thought Daniel, as his pants were unzipped. He didn't know what to do with his hands at first, but after a minute he had to hold onto Mark's shoulders to steady himself. His unfocused vision cleared in that time and he saw himself in the mirror of his dresser, the other man's head moving between his legs, and he felt himself harden further, watched himself make a face like a grimace, then roll his neck slightly. He closed his eyes, didn't want to look at himself. The man's curls were as dark as Sha're's had been, and as soft. His head filled with thoughts of her but the mouth sucking him was different, and he didn't want to be thinking of her, so he looked down and watched his dick sliding in and out of Mark's lips, and realized that Mark had unzipped his own pants and was jerking off.

Gradually Daniel became aware of himself, that he was making sounds, low and desperate, his breath speeding into ragged hitches. He was famished, shuddering with need. It got better, and then even better, and then he came with a harsh gasp of power and ecstasy.

Afterwards, Mark smiled and left, and Daniel took a shower and got six hours of work done without pause.

It was that easy.

"Not the one with the snow," complained Jack.

Daniel lazed back in his chair, re-reading the MALP data and letting the talk sift around him. He had slept well the last several days. Each night he'd gone to bed, giving his customary glance to the photo of Sha're on his bedside table before turning out the lamp. And each night he'd made it through to morning without nightmares, not even the insidious, commonplace ones in which he kissed Sha're and forced a Gou'ald into her mouth, or watched her make dinner over the fire as the snake inside her sang hymns.

He felt occasionally guilty and puzzled by his recent off-duty behavior, but the rhythms of the SGC were recognizable and somehow lulling, even when the alarm flared for incoming or a troop of Marines ran by him in a corridor, and the vast difference between his free time and duty time made it possible for him to compartmentalize his life, like a man packing boxes.

"...to Daniel, Earth to Daniel," Jack said.

He blinked and looked up inquisitively.

"You wanna chime in here?"

"Uh...yes. Sorry." He started to chime in, then frowned and considered the matter. "What were we talking about?"

"You okay, Daniel?" asked Sam gently.

"Fine." He set the folder down and closed it, laced his hands together, projected attentiveness.

"The question is whether to head for the rock formations in the direction of the sun," said Teal'c, "or for the open plain, on which there appears to be the remains of a structure."

"Not exactly a difficult decision," said Daniel. "If the SMART team believes that the surface heat pattern indicates subterranean habitation we should investigate the rocks first."

"We're agreed then," said Jack. He seemed surprised by this realization.

"Well, I'm not entirely sure the SMART team is right," said Daniel, adjusting his glasses, "but I'll go with their assessment for now."

For the rest of the meeting no thoughts of his own life distracted him, and he let himself mesh with his team, one cog among others, and felt almost happy.

It was one hour of his life. There were others.

It was raining, and three o'clock in the afternoon. Daniel had few expectations, and he didn't want lunch. He ordered soup and tea, and then took them to a table; they were props, as was the book he'd brought, which he had no intentions of really reading. He spent twenty minutes at the table, making occasional awkward eye contact with a man sitting across the room. What the hell am I doing, he asked himself.

"I have no idea what I'm doing," he murmured to Jessie when the bartender came over to take his money.

"But you're doing it well," Jessie said, winking.

Daniel went outside and leaned against the window, waiting for what he wasn't sure was going to happen. The man came out and stood a few feet away. He lit a cigarette, blew smoke, then stuck one hand in his pockets and jingled his keys. Daniel looked over.

Ten minutes later, they were standing in the middle of Daniel's living room, shirts off, jeans open. The man kept one hand companionably on Daniel's right shoulder, the other wrapped around his dick, working him with expert strokes as Daniel worked his. Wordless reciprocity. They did not look at each other's faces. They lasted five minutes, if that, but it was perfect. Just what he'd needed.

The man put his shirt and jacket back on when he was done, and Daniel finally looked again at his face, ruddy behind a blond mustache. He looked like a road-worker. His hands had been callused. As he let the man out, Daniel said, "Thank you."

It seemed the polite thing to do.

"I, uh, I wanted to say thanks," he said.

Jack didn't stop tucking his shirt into his pants. "What for?"

"Well, for pulling me out of the crevasse, for starters. Saving my life." Daniel kept his chin down as he buttoned his shirt. A distant holler from the showers rang out as airmen joshed in the spray, and there was the bang of a locker somewhere just out of sight. "The usual, I guess. I just--I realized I hadn't said anything, and--"

"Hey," Jack said, interrupting him. "De nada, buddy." He shouldered on his coat and walked up to clap Daniel on the arm. "That's what I'm here for. That's what we're all here for." He smiled easily, and it gave Daniel an odd flash, as if he were seeing another Jack whose life had been far smoother, who could smile with this kind of natural generosity all the time. Jack O'Neill was a good man; but in such moments he seemed not only good, but...reachable.

It ran counter to Daniel's understanding, and he resisted the impression.

He smiled back briefly, because it was all he had to give; he could not take Jack in his arms and hug him, bury his face in Jack's neck and say the words that family said to one another. It was an impulse to be quashed, especially in the locker room of a military base.

"You going home?" Daniel asked, still fumbling with his buttons.

"Oh, yeah. I'm planning on two jiggers of something with a kick, fried trout, and an undignified collapse. You?"

"I don't know." He thought of the vast Everest of trying to shop for groceries, and of his empty apartment, the way winter sunlight played across the dusty carpet at certain times of day, usually when he woke up on the couch covered in books.

Jack patted his arm again, and his eyes were sharp as a knife and completely kind. "Get some rest."

"Right. Yes," said Daniel. "Rest."

He didn't know quite what that was, but it sounded good.

"Stay far, far away from that one," Jessie confided, leaning across the bar. "Or you'll get the itchy and scratchy where you want it least."

Daniel raised his brows expressively, then darted a quick glance at the boy getting cigarettes from the machine. He wore a striped shirt that looked like a leftover from the seventies, and faded, hip-dragging denims. "Too young, anyway," he said. "He can't be more than twenty-one." He made a face as the boy slouched off. "What is he, one of those skateboarders?"

"Skater boys, oh yes." Jessie made a smacking sound.

"You like that?"

"Grunge, attitude, terrible table manners. What's not to like?"

"I should think, grunge, attitude, and terrible table manners."

Jessie grinned. "You're just leaving the pool wide open for me. Wiiiide open."

Daniel had nothing to say to that. Innuendo still made him uncomfortable. It was one thing hearing it in living Sumerian, in the ribald cadences of a tribesman on some backwards planet talking about his wives. At least then he could distract himself layer by layer from the content of what was being said, with grammatical and semantic analysis, phonetic transcription, and all the other work of rebridging a written language to a spoken derivative that kept him busy until Jack came by and kicked his pack and told him to get a move on unless he wanted to be left behind.

However, he still couldn't get used to the lewd, high-pitched drawls of men he felt essentially different from, but with whom he had at least one thing in common. They were their own tribe, but not his; he wanted only the ones who could pass for straight, and he imagined these men to be living on the edges of the tribe, like he himself did. He wasn't sure this was true, but it helped him feel more normal; reassured him that this was convenience, not preference.

How many species of aliens had he met, how many distant worlds had he walked on? A dozen species, perhaps; dozens of worlds. And yet his experiences were not quite enough to make his own world familiar.

"What's it like in here at night?" he asked Jessie.

"Busy, honey. We pack them in like wieners in a can."

"Ah, that's an...appealing image," said Daniel, reconsidering his plans to drop by.

Jessie laughed, a genuinely amused sound. "Sweetheart, you don't have to stay. You come, you pick out a nice toy, you take him home. Five minutes."

"Five minutes?" said Daniel with amazement and skepticism; he knew his mouth was hanging open and forced himself to close it.

"For you, three."

Huh, thought Daniel, stabbing a french fry into his pool of ketchup and drawing runes on the otherwise white plate. It was not unpleasant to picture that: drop in, find a willing partner, cock his finger and beckon. He shifted on his stool, sighed and ate the fry. He had post-mission buzz, and all he wanted to do was get laid in a quick, uncomplicated way, so he could get his focus back on work.

"It starts to pick up around ten," Jessie was saying. "Midnight, we're wall to wall. You've never been upstairs, have you?" At Daniel's head shake, he went on, "Do a full tour at least once. Don't settle. Dance floor's on the second floor, pool tables are on third. Be sure to wear," he began, and then he paused, stood back, put his hands to hips and looked Daniel up and down. Daniel glanced down at his own flannel shirt dubiously.

"Honey, just wear whatever you want."

Jessie had been right. It was packed. It was also noisy, smoky, and hot, and thick with clashing colognes and a miasma of beer. Oh joy, thought Daniel, as he was admitted past the bouncer. He stood indecisively by the entrance, backing inch by slow inch around the circumference of a column as men passed, before the collision of nearby bodies forced him out of its orbit. From ten almost unpassable feet away, he eyed the packed bar; but there was another bartender on, not Jessie, and there didn't appear to be an easy way to get served.

One tour, he told himself, and picked his way through the crowd; he climbed the stairs feeling like a fool, quickly glanced at the dancers, then climbed another flight to the pool room, where a bewildering variety of men were shooting games or standing clustered around tables from which raucous laughter rose. It struck Daniel that this had not been a well thought out idea; he was still wearing his coat, and he had no drink, and he knew no one.

Men were staring his way, assessing him, but none of them were what he wanted, even though he was not really sure what he wanted, beyond a willing mouth or hand. He was just turning to leave when he thought he saw someone different staring his way. He ducked his head, debated the steps in front of him, then eased a few paces back and found the man again through a crowd of moving heads. Eye contact was made. He was fortyish, with a buzz cut, and Daniel could see the links of his dogtags disappearing into his shirt. When Daniel's gaze wandered up again, the man's stare had honed in on him even more intensely. Daniel licked his lips once, quick and light, without even planning it, and the man straightened and came his way through the crowd.

Well, that was easy, Daniel thought as they left.

They went back to his place. The man did not compliment his apartment. Up close in the lamp-light of Daniel's bedroom, his face was not particularly attractive, but his body was lean and hard, and he wore some spicy, soapy cologne that broke through the lingering bar smoke and registered to Daniel as clean.

They'd introduced themselves on the walk over, but Daniel realized suddenly that he couldn't remember the man's name. He was about to ask, when the man said,

"You suck?"

Daniel never had before, but he said yes immediately, without stopping to think. By the time he got down on his knees he was already hard and the man already had his dick out. "Are you, uh, clean?" Daniel remembered to ask. The words came out tersely, without breath.

"Yeah. You?"

"Yes," Daniel said and took the man in his mouth. It took him a minute to figure out where to hold him, how to get the most inside, how to suck. The man said nothing for a minute, and was not moving very much. Daniel sensed he might pretty bad at this.

"You done this before?" the man asked, confirming his worry.

Daniel drew his mouth off, wiped his lips with embarrassment. "No. Sorry."

"You'll get better."

And Daniel noticed the man's dick was reddening, and his own lifted inside his jeans and ached. He kissed the head, then sucked it inside again, and the man gave a little grunt. He got better as quickly as he could, but the man didn't come. That was okay though, as it turned out. They got undressed and lay on Daniel's bed, and the man surprised him with a hard, long kiss, then more of them down Daniel's body. His hands were rough and strong as they pinched his nipples, and Daniel remembered his name was Gary.
 
Daniel was nervous, but it was exciting, it was raw and wild. Gary raked his teeth down his ribs and nuzzled his balls with no shame and then sucked him off, while Daniel writhed on his sheets at the pleasure. And then Gary rolled him over and opened him up, hard-knuckled fingers slick with something taken from the pocket of his jeans, and after a few minutes during which Daniel could sense Gary's impatient hunger, the other man slid on a condom and entered him with one stunning and slow and unstoppable thrust.

"Oh, god," Daniel said, pressing his forehead into his pillow. It hurt, it hurt, and then it gradually didn't, and he breathed, and Gary began fucking him: short, hard little pops that every now and then sent a wave of excruciating pleasure through Daniel, until he was hard again.

"Want a reach-around?" asked Gary, his voice flat and cut with heavy breathing.

"Wha--" And then he cried out as Gary's slick hand closed around his cock, sobbed once and bucked backwards and felt Gary slam into him in response. The rhythm between them picked up sharply then, a grinding spread of heat that made Daniel's thighs prickle and his body sweat and itch and he wanted so much more, there was no way to articulate, so he dug his knees into the bed and drove himself back harder. He was muscle and bone, he was alive, he was racing against his own heart, trying to outstrip its restraint.

Gary's hand tightened on Daniel's cock, corkscrewing the head, and Daniel cursed savagely in Ancient Egyptian, begged to be fucked raw, and then he shoved with a helpless cry into Gary's hand and came in hot ribbons. Gary squeezed and stroked it out of him, then removed his hand and grabbed both Daniel's hips and pistoned into him with no gentleness.

"Fuck, yeah, oh fuck yeah," Gary said, his voice throaty, nearly a shout, as he came.

Daniel groaned and momentarily thought of the neighbors and felt himself tighten around Gary's spasming dick with a sense of perverse relish. It was so fucking good, it was so fucking good.

It was so fucking good to be alive.

The litter of their meal was extensive, and Daniel contemplated it, wishing he'd eaten less and that he were drunker.

"You know, Hell isn't all it's cracked up to be," said Jack. He'd uttered variations on this theme all evening. Despite the grimness of their mission, he seemed deeply satisfied by the knowledge that they'd been to Hell and back.

"They didn't really take care with their decor," said Sam, on her fifth beer.

"Wall hangings," said Jack. "I was thinking that."

"They'd probably have taken that literally," said Daniel in a dry voice. Jack winced broadly at him.

"I regret having not been with you," said Teal'c.

"We're kind of glad you were elsewhere." Daniel tilted his glass so that the ice rattled, which Jack took as a cue to refill it. He tried to move his glass away, but Jack grabbed his hand and held it steady while he poured another shot. The warm, sturdy feel of his fingers made Daniel's mind and mouth take a short break as his body heated.

"You saved the day, Teal'c," said Jack. "As usual." He raised the bottle. "Sure you won't have just one?"

"No thank you, O'Neill."

A light wind lifted the curtains at the end of the dining room for a few seconds; it cut nippily into the warmth, but it was Jack's house and he'd seemed to need the fresh air.

"I keep thinking of how close we came," said Sam, staring at the flickering candles in the middle of the table. "That Blood of Sokar stuff was potent."

"Well, if it was all that potent, we'd have spilled the beans," said Jack. "But we pulled through."

"It may have been an old vintage." Daniel gave a wry twitch of lips. "Who knows how many centuries they had the bottle sitting around in a closet."

"Waiting for the proper occasion," said Jack.

"I think we pulled through by a hair." Sam's voice was tight, harsh, and then she rubbed at her wet eyes, and Daniel could see that the stress had suddenly caught up with her. Jack reached over and touched her hand, then clasped it. Daniel's gaze fixed steadily on their wedded fingers. He knew they were only friends, but he'd long suspected there was more behind it for both of them; feelings neither one could acknowledge, given their working relationship.

He felt a sudden overpowering affection for them, and the depth of feeling made his thoughts turn deadly; he was an outsider looking in, like Teal'c, and he would have killed to keep them safe. As strongly as this impression came, came a sudden urge to leave their presence. He was claustrophobic with emotion and the painful lucidity of insight. This rare gathering in Jack's house with the only people he loved recalled him to a childhood intimacy he'd long since given up hope of recapturing.

Christmas had come and gone, and they had not noticed. It didn't matter.

Daniel looked sidelong at Teal'c, who was meditatively studying the candle flames, then glanced at his watch. It was nine thirty.

"Got somewhere else to be?" asked Jack with his uncanny precision of timing.

Daniel looked at him, thinking yes. He wanted to be across town. He wanted to rise and put on his coat, and drive himself away from sociability and into his own wintry quietude. He wanted the aloneness that comes with being in the middle of a crowd of strangers. He needed the strobe and throb of the bar he'd come to frequent, to take someone home whose name he didn't know, and push him down to his knees on the floor and ride his mouth. Restless, he had to recharge.

"Just wondering what time it was. Thought I'd turn in early."

"You can stay here." Jack glanced around. "All of you. Hang out. Two bedrooms, a few extra couches. We'll move this party to the living room, drink some more, feed Teal'c jellybeans--"

Teal'c tilted his head and raised an appreciative brow.

"--put on a stupid movie, play, I dunno, Scrabble," Jack finished. He'd let go of Sam's hand to lean back again in his chair. "Daniel, you win," he said, as if it were a casual order.

Daniel ducked his head and smiled. "I don't know...." He trailed off, reluctant and at a loss.

"Come on, Daniel." Sam was smiling, had regained her aplomb. "It'll be fun."

"Decompression," said Jack.

"I have never played Scrabble," noted Teal'c.

Daniel rearranged his silverware on his empty plate, lining it up in a row. He abruptly had no words, no certainty of love to equal theirs. If he cared too much, they would die, and then he'd be utterly alone.

He sensed their consideration, but nothing more was said. They assumed he'd stay, and he stayed. When they rose and lazily made their way into the living room, he let himself be eased along, sat for an hour or so, won a few games of Scrabble, lost another to Sam, then gently disjoined.

"I'm going to head out," he said.

Jack walked him to the door, put a hand on his shoulder, then his neck. Teal'c was still sitting just around the corner on the couch, and Daniel could hear Sam moving in the kitchen. It was personal and strange, Jack's touch in the shadowed foyer. There was no distance between them of any kind, and Jack had drunk just enough that Daniel could smell it on his breath.

He was so close to kissing Jack that terror gripped his belly, and then he did kiss him, clumsily and with helpless hunger. Jack drew in a breath and pulled away, no hesitation, then cupped Daniel's head and pressed their cheeks close, wrapped an arm around his waist and held him tight. "I love you," Jack said. "I love you, Daniel."

And Daniel knew that meant it was impossible. They were friends.

"Stay," said Jack, pulling away to look Daniel in the face, his direct eyes saying it was okay, it'd be okay. "Don't go."

"I, uh, I need to go." Daniel swallowed. "I'll be okay."

"You've had a lot to drink. I can't let you drive."

Daniel hadn't had a lot to drink, but Jack's words were kind. "No, I'm fine. Really. I'm good. I would--I'd stay if I weren't."

Jack had to let him go, and Daniel walked out down the shoveled walk, across the crunch of rock salt, to his car. It was starting to snow again. Jack stood in the doorway as he started the engine and pulled out, and when Daniel turned his head for one last glance, he saw that Jack's hand was lifted in an unmoving wave.

"Sorry, uh, hey," nervous laugh, "what's your name again?"

"Daniel," he said, taking off his shirt and tossing it on the bed. The man was looking him over with unmistakable wonderment. Daniel liked that. He tugged open his jeans and drop-kicked them off. "You fuck?" he asked calmly.

"Yeah," the man said, cupping himself through his trousers, already rubbing as he unzipped his fly. "Yeah."

"I want it hard," said Daniel. "Can you do it hard?"

The man's eyes gleamed with readiness in the lamp-light. "Hard as you want, sweetheart. Hard as you want."

Daniel nodded and felt himself beginning to thaw back to life with the anticipation of touch, the clean sweep of sweat. Everything was a substitute for everything else, and he'd learned this long ago; he just had to relearn.

His body was a latent scream, but it wanted out.
 
 

End

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