Jack O'Neill turned the sheet of pale blue paper over in his fingers, not sure quite what he was looking for before realizing after a moment that the missing information he needed was how to gauge his own reaction. He looked between the envelope he had slit open and the letter he was holding while outside he could still hear the birds singing, the sound of the mail van heading down the road, trying to make sense of a sum that was all too easy to add up.

He was shocked at the way this handwriting still had the ability to make his heart beat faster. He'd received many of these long blue envelopes in the past, with the same neatly written script. By the time they reached him in far-flung places they were often a little battered from having been through the USAF mail system. There had always been the same reaction: joy and trepidation perfectly balanced. Taking a moment to savor it but at the same time offering a prayer to a god never really quite believed in that this wouldn't contain bad news. Her handwriting had always been the proof he needed to know that she, at least, was well enough to write. Of course there had been the fear she might be writing to tell him something terminal had been diagnosed but he'd got himself trained to regard that reaction as empty paranoia; something to be fought and mastered. But he'd never been able to stop that other voice in his head, the one that said over and over as he tried to slit the envelope with fingers that didn't tremble: Not Charlie…Not Charlie…Not Charlie…

Looking at this letter, which he has now read three times, he told himself his feeling of loss was irrational. The news it contained couldn't really be called bad or good. It just put a bolt and a padlock on a door they had already made a mutual decision to close. But it did mean there was no way back to that life. Perhaps a part of him had been thinking that despite all the odds they might end up together in old age. When the pain had dulled and the wounds were faint faded scars. Another part had worried that she wouldn't realize how far he'd moved on. Now it seemed that she was the one who had moved on to something positive while he was left with his work and his uniform and a battle he could probably never win. The words themselves were gentle and loving. He remembered her letting another boy down gently at High School because she'd already agreed to go out with O'Neill; how she'd done it so kindly the boy had gone away looking like someone had given him a commendation instead of refusing his offer of a date. Now he was the one being turned down, and even though there were all those letters from lawyers telling him the connection between them as anything more than friends was finally and irrevocably broken he still felt as directionless as a kite without a string.

He looked at the clock. He didn't need to be at the SGC today but he'd go in anyway. His life had narrowed to this. She'd been off making new friends in new parts of the country, but all he had was the same house and the same job he'd had five years before. While she had been evolving he'd been stagnating. He was also a little taken aback by how vulnerable he was to his emotions. Wasn't part of the deal on getting older supposed to be that you toughened up some?

O'Neill rubbed his right knee reflectively as he reached for his coat. He'd thought the pay off for getting rheumatism and arthritis and having knees that were pretty much shot, and a back that ached every time he had to pick up anything heavy – which in his line of work was often – was developing a thicker skin. That seemed like a fair exchange. But as he closed the front door behind him, pushing the letter carefully into his jacket as he did so, he had a sudden remembrance of his father, disconcertingly garbed in a cardigan and slippers, telling him out of nowhere that he couldn't listen to music any more because it moved him too greatly. The previews for kids' movies were the worst, he'd said, the first bars always made him cry. He'd looked at Jack, as if he somehow expected him to have the answers, saying in disbelief, "I didn't even cry at my own father's funeral!"

O'Neill shut the door very carefully and headed for his car. He wondered if he should buy a new one. He didn't need to but at least that way if he did choose to drive across the country to attend his ex-wife's wedding, there would be something else that was different about him except for the color of his hair.

***

Daniel was waiting for him as he entered Cheyenne Mountain, arms wrapped around himself. O'Neill took one look at his body language and increased his pace. "What's up?" He signed in automatically, his signature on the page identical to the one on every other page, not a tremor in the firm downstrokes, face unreadable.

Daniel gave him a look of mingled relief and apology. "Janet told me not to call you but Sam and Teal'c had a car crash. They're going to be okay, but they're not allowed on missions for a week."

O'Neill handed the pen back to the airmen. "Anyone else hurt?"

"The driver of the tanker had a heart attack at the wheel, they think. He was dead before the tanker hit them. They were knocked off the road by the impact. Sam has concussion and a broken arm. Teal'c was trapped in the wreckage but they cut him out okay."

O'Neill nodded and accompanied Daniel to the elevator. It was a little worrying that Daniel had just assumed he would be coming in to the SGC on what was supposed to be a day off. As the elevator doors closed, he gave Daniel an assessing glance. Daniel hadn't shaved. Scratch that, Daniel hadn't slept. So it had happened in the early hours of the morning. Daniel had still been working in his office when the call had come in. He'd probably imagined the worst for a while. Then there would have been the time spent waiting for them to be brought in from the crash.

"Next time – call me."

"Janet and Hammond said not to."

O'Neill met his gaze. "Next time – call me." He flicked Daniel's blue shirt with his fingers. "You look like crap."

"It was a long night."

"Another reason why you should have called me. Nights like that are shorter when there are two of you."

Daniel gave him a glance full of compassion and O'Neill swore he could see the man hearing the echo of that gunshot. Daniel said gently, "I know."

O'Neill reached out and patted his shoulder. "So, next time: call me."

The doors opened with and they crossed over to the second elevator. O'Neill looked at Daniel again and saw Daniel visibly relaxing just because he was here, the burden of anxiety shared and so halved. He pressed the button, saying conversationally, "You should get a shower and a shave. I'll check in on Carter and Teal'c and meet you in the canteen. What solids do you want with your caffeine fix? Waffles?"

Daniel wrinkled his nose. "I don't feel like waffles."

"Okay, eggs then?"

"Actually, waffles might be okay. Last time they were out of maple syrup."

"I'll ask first. Waffles if they have maple syrup, otherwise eggs?"

Daniel nodded, then gave him one of those assessing sideways glances O'Neill had come to know so well, before asking quietly, "Are you okay, Jack? You looked a little down even before I gave you the bad news."

"I might have to take a trip. I'll be out of town for a few days."

Daniel moistened his lips. "Did someone die?"

"No. Nothing like that." O'Neill glanced at Daniel and thought how little sleep he would get if he stayed on base for a week while they waiting for Carter and Teal'c to recover. Unless his fingers were prised from whatever artifact he was examining and he was forcibly sent out into the sunshine to get some fresh air or sent home to get some rest, downtime tended to exhaust Daniel even more than missions. "Want to come with me?"

Daniel blinked in surprise. "Fishing?"

"Nothing that good. Lots of driving and a night in a motel, then a wedding at the end of it, before we get the fun of driving back again."

Daniel blinked again. "Um, Jack, I'm very fond of you, but I don't think I'm really ready for marriage yet."

Daniel's delivery was so deadpan it surprised the laughter out of him, doing him a lot of good in the process. O'Neill recovered enough to thump him on the arm. "Not my wedding, Dannyboy, someone else's. So, think lots of drunken people you've never met all washing their dirty laundry in public while the best man gropes the bridesmaids, everyone's maiden aunt cries, and the father of the bride throws up in the punchbowl."

"Sounds wonderful. When do we leave?"

The doors of the elevator opened and O'Neill looked at him fondly. That empty feeling he'd experienced this morning while reading the letter from Sara was starting to be filled again; a remembrance that he did have a life too, and his life really wasn't so bad. "I'll talk to Hammond. Go get yourself cleaned up and I'll meet you in the canteen."

Daniel gave him a sloppy salute. "Are you going to let me drive your car without complaining?"

O'Neill pondered the question and then shrugged. "I'm going to let you drive it." As he headed towards Hammond to ask for leave before heading for the infirmary to check on his team he already felt a little better.

***

Despite the disinfectant smell of the infirmary in his nostrils, O'Neill looked down at his 2IC fondly. Carter had a spectacular black eye and a lot of bandaging around her head, not to mention a morphine UV and her arm in a cast, but she was alive and in one piece, and according to Doc Fraiser not in any danger, just being kept in so her concussion could be observed.

"So, Carter? Out partying with Teal'c again, eh?"

She squinted up at him resentfully through the bandages. "We were going to see a movie. I don't call that 'partying'."

O'Neill pulled a stem of grapes from the basket by her bedside, realizing how hungry he was as he did so. He tossed three into his mouth, feeling the sweet pulp crunch between his molars. "Depends on the movie really."

"It was a late night showing of "The Phantom Menace". Teal'c was interested to see how the story began." She looked at him in disapproval. "Incidentally, sir, why didn't you take him to see it when it came out? You know how much he loves "Star Wars"."

O'Neill shrugged. "Because I hate sci-fi?" As she gave him a withering look, he held up his hands defensively. "Hey, I took Daniel to see the Indiana Jones trilogy so he could see it on a big screen."

"You like "Raiders of the Lost Ark", sir, that wasn't exactly a hardship for you."

"Have you ever sat through a movie involving archaeology with Daniel? If you haven't tried it, don't tell me it's not a hardship. Incidentally, if there's a third 'Mummy' movie you get to take Daniel. I don't want another lecture on Imhotep's contribution to the building of the pyramids." He dug his thumbnail between his teeth. "Next time tell whoever bought you these grapes to get the seedless kind."

"I'd really like to learn that sword fighting Evie did in the second movie." Carter looked wistful. "How hard do you think that would be to learn? I should ask Teal'c."

O'Neill looked at the cast on her arm. "Maybe leave it a few days?"

She tried not to grin and then did. "Janet says you're off on a trip?"

O'Neill looked around in disbelief. "How does Fraiser know?"

"Daniel told her."

"He was supposed to be getting himself cleaned up."

"He just stuck his head around the door to see how Teal'c and I were doing."

O'Neill stole another handful of grapes as he got to his feet. "Well, I'm not buying him breakfast until he shaves."

Carter grinned again. "Have a good trip, sir."

"Thank you. You have a good…" He waved a hand at her bandages, "…recovery. No sword fighting."

"Yes, sir." As he headed for the other end of the infirmary, he felt another glow of warmth; a reflected glow from the unmistakable affection in her eyes. It wasn't such a bad thing to spend every day with people who liked you, worried about you, and wanted you to be happy. But was it enough? Was friendship enough when you'd known love? Was a job you thought mattered enough when you'd once had a child?

"O'Neill…"

O'Neill came out of his reverie and realized he had been on the point of wandering past Teal'c's bed. The Jaffa had bandages around his torso and bruising to his face. Apparently several of his ribs had been crushed but Junior was doing the usual repair job. Once again, O'Neill had reason to be grateful to a Goa'uld; something that irked him every time. He grabbed a chair, turning around the wrong way to straddle it. "How are you doing, Teal'c, buddy?"

Teal'c was giving him one of those assessing looks which always made O'Neill feel he was being weighed and found wanting. "I am recovering. Did Daniel Jackson contact you?"

"No. The one time Daniel should have disobeyed orders for some reason he didn't. I'm going to be having a little talk with him about chain of command any minute."

"Does General Hammond not in fact outrank you considerably, O'Neill?"

O'Neill just knew Teal'c had really enjoyed that. He gave him a narrow look. "In theory – yes. In practice – Daniel's all alone with me out there on those missions so if he knows what's good for him he'll do what I say."

"No doubt you will remind him of this on your journey together?"

O'Neill opened his mouth to demand to know how Teal'c knew and then closed it again. "One day I might actually want to keep something a secret in this place." He darted another look at Teal'c's right side. The car had been wedged between the tanker and a tree and apparently one of Teal'c's ribs had punctured his lung. Without Junior the Jaffa could have died.

"If Daniel Jackson did not contact you then why are you here?"

O'Neill frowned at the Jaffa in confusion. "What?"

"You are not scheduled to be in the SGC today so why are you here?"

O'Neill just knew he was looking shifty. "Neither's Daniel."

"Daniel Jackson was still on the base when the call came through to Doctor Fraiser about the accident suffered by Major Carter and myself. He had not yet left. But why are you here?"

O'Neill grimaced. Why was he here? Because he'd had some bad news and hadn't wanted to be alone with it? Because he didn't think the place could run without him? Because one day off wasn't enough to go fishing and there was nothing to do at home while if he was here at least he could feel useful? He looked at Teal'c and shrugged. "I don't really have anywhere else to go."

Teal'c looked thoughtful. "Perhaps it is just as well that you will now be able to take some leave."

"Yeah." O'Neill walked to the doorway and then frowned. "Are you saying I should get out more?"

Teal'c raised an eyebrow interrogatively but O'Neill wasn't being fobbed off by that. "Because if you're saying I should get out more can I point out that I am the only one who actually leaves when he has leave. Carter stays here to play with naquadah reactors. Daniel fiddles with his artifacts, and you…"

"On our last official leave, I did in fact travel to Chulak to visit Drey'ac and Ry'ac," Teal'c answered him imperturbably. "You failed to leave the SGC."

"There was a crisis!"

"Nevertheless…"

"Don't 'nevertheless' me. I have a life. I fish."

There was the sound of a cough from the doorway and O'Neill turned to see Daniel looking freshly shaved and washed, grimacing at him in a way that seemed to suggest a certain lack of conviction. " 'I fish therefore I am?' "

O'Neill glowered at him. "Why aren't you in the canteen?"

"Why aren't you in the canteen?"

O'Neill gave him another quelling glare. "I'm on my way now."

"I ordered for you." Daniel turned to give Teal'c and Carter a wave. "Get well soon."

As they headed out into the corridor, O'Neill darted him another look. "How could you order for me? You don't know what I want."

"Yogurt and oatmeal, of course."

O'Neill gazed at him in disbelieving outrage. "You didn't?"

Daniel gave him best innocent 'why wouldn't I?' look of bewilderment in return. "You didn't want yogurt and oatmeal?"

"No!" His stomach was practically howling in indignation at the thought.

"I've seen you eat both of them."

"Only under duress!"

Daniel shrugged. "Probably just as well I ordered the full fried artery clogger then."

O'Neill held up an admonishing finger. "Don't toy with me, Daniel. If I get to that canteen and they're out of hash browns…"

As they squabbled amicably all the way to the canteen, their shoulders so close they were almost touching, then squabbled amicably all the way to their table before sitting down to eat breakfast together in companionable silence, he thought again about the difference between the family he had used to have and the family he had now. It meant a lot to have these people he knew so well who knew him so well, whom he cared about so much and who cared about him so much. But it wasn't quite the same as having a significant other for whom he was the most important thing in the world. That was what he and Sara had used to have until he'd screwed it up. That was what Sara was going to be having again. That was what was so emphatically missing from his life. Perhaps his life was crowded enough with other things it was a much smaller gap than it would have been for another man of his age and background, but it was still a gap and sometimes loneliness could whistle through it like the chilliest Arctic wind.

Daniel looked at him concernedly across the table in the commissary. "You okay, Jack?"

O'Neill pushed his fork through the bacon on his plate, gazing at it as though the grease stain it left on the porcelain was the most fascinating thing in the world. "I'm just thinking."

There was a moment's pause before Daniel said, "Well, pace yourself, won't you?"

O'Neill looked up in time to see Ferretti barely concealing a snort of laughter from the next table. Deliberately, O'Neill dug his fork into his sunny side up fried egg and then flicked some of the golden yellow yolk at Daniel. It spattered very satisfyingly onto his glasses.

Daniel regarded him straitly for a moment, then removed his glasses and wiped them on his utility shirt. "Grow up."

"Grow up yourself."

"You started it."

"You started it with the smartass remarks."

"I didn't flick my waffle at you."

"Only because you're too greedy to share."

Daniel looked at him for a moment and then deliberately stuck out his tongue before going back to munching his way through a positive mountain of waffles, swimming in a sea of maple syrup.

O'Neill picked his fork up. "You'll never eat all that."

"No, I won't." Daniel munched his way through another mouthful. "I won't get the chance because the second you finish the last bite of your breakfast you'll start eating mine."

"Only if you look like you can't finish it."

"According to you I always look like I can't finish it."

"Well, as my grandmother used to say, your eyes are bigger than your belly." As O'Neill said it he realized that in Daniel's case his grandmother had a point. Not only was he in the habit of heaping his plate with far more food than he could finish before his mind wandered back to whichever artifact he'd last been playing with, he did have very big eyes indeed, and an unfairly flat stomach. O'Neill was just getting to the age where he had to fight to stop middle-aged spread from making its presence felt. Every time he didn't work out his stomach would thicken an imperceptible fraction in retaliation. The shape that had once been his effortlessly and apparently by right, now had to be maintained with discipline and determination. At nine years younger and several pounds lighter, Daniel was still at the stage where he could eat what he liked and not have it show up anywhere. O'Neill watched Daniel shovel carbohydrates and sugar down for a minute and then shook his head. "There's no justice."

"When do we leave?"

He couldn't believe his foster parents had never taught Daniel not to speak with his mouth full but apparently they had missed out on that bit of social etiquette. Actually there was quite a lot of social etiquette Daniel had missed out on. He was patience and tact personified with alien cultures and developing races but stick him next to anyone of high rank in a military uniform except Hammond and unless he was told strictly that he was on a diplomatic mission not to get them all grounded for the rest of their natural lives, he promptly displayed the waspish intolerance of a teenager going through a rebellious phase. Hammond had recently added Simmons to the list of Pentagon approved officials of whom Daniel did not approve and should therefore if possible be kept away from at all costs in case he told them what he thought of him in words even a spook in a suit could understand. O'Neill had to admit that it was just one of the many traits about Daniel of which he thoroughly approved.

"Jack…?"

"Ow!" He was jolted out of his fond appreciation of his friend by a light kick on the ankle. "What?"

"When do we leave?"

"As soon as you finish your breakfast." O'Neill looked down at his own plate and realized it was empty and he was still hungry. He looked back at Daniel's still heaped pile of waffles. He cleaned his fork on a napkin and pulled Daniel's plate a little closer.

"Jack!"

"You'll never eat all of that by yourself." He speared a piece of waffle and dipped it in the maple syrup lake on Daniel's side of the plate. "Now stop talking and keep eating or we'll never get out of here before nine…"

***

By the erratic light of passing cars, Daniel was turning the map around then turning it around again before peering at the back as if he somehow thought that was going to reveal the truth to him. O'Neill mentally counted to three and waited.

"Jack, why are we…?"

"Because I prefer this route and there's a nice little place along here which has really good home cooking."

Daniel gave him one of those little sideways looks, which were a mixture of disapproval and uncertainty. "We only have two days to get there."

"We'll get there."

The interior of the car smelt of their sweat. They had definitely both been on the road too long. Daniel kept dozing and then waking, looking more rumpled and sleep-starved each time. He'd been darting O'Neill less than approving looks ever since he'd left Route 70 and was now getting to the positively whiney stage. "Can I just point out that unlike you I had no sleep last night and I really don't like the idea of spending the night in the back of your car."

Scanning the roadside for the turn-off, O'Neill said, "Daniel, I promise I've never thought of you as a backseat-of-the-car kind of date."

"That isn't funny."

"Did you leave your sense of humor in Colorado along with your toothbrush?"

"No, I left it at the last three motels you wouldn't check into."

O'Neill saw the sign he'd been looking for and turned the wheel. "All the worst motels are on the freeway. If we go my way we'll be sure of a bed for the night in a decent place. And we'll always be sure of getting a vacancy."

Daniel looked at his watch. "I hope you're right because we've been on the road for eighteen hours now and I really need to eat something that has some identifiable ingredients, have a shower, then get some sleep in a bed."

"I guarantee you this place will have a vacancy." O'Neill drove around the bend of the drive and then had to hit the brake hard as he found himself at the end of a queue of cars. "What the…?"

A cheerful looking youth in evening dress tapped on the window. "Bride or groom?"

O'Neill looked at Daniel as if he might be able to provide an explanation. Daniel winced apologetically and waved a hand between them. "We're just good friends."

"But of the bride or the groom?" the youth prompted patiently.

O'Neill held up a finger. "This place has been taken over for a…wedding reception?"

"Yes, sir. Aren't you here for the reception?"

O'Neill grimaced. "Is there…another motel anywhere around here?"

The youth pointed east. "A hundred and twenty miles thataway, sir."

O'Neill and Daniel exchanged another glance. Daniel leant forward and smiled. "Bride."

"What?"

"We're friends of the bride."

"Left car park, sir."

Even though he gave Daniel a look of disapproval, O'Neill let out the brake and rolled his car after the lights of the one in front. "You lied."

"I'm tired and hungry and I want a shower."

"But it's their wedding reception…"

Daniel gave him a look of exasperation. "Did you know who everyone was at your wedding?"

"Mostly."

"Well, I didn't."

O'Neill pulled efficiently into a parking space. "Daniel, you didn't even know who the bride was until after you married her. Your experience with weddings isn't exactly normal."

Daniel got out of the car and stretched again. "You have the most uncomfortable car in the world, I hope you know that. And if they're in love they won't care who else is there and if they're not in love they shouldn't be getting married anyway."

O'Neill looked at him fondly across the roof of the car. "Whatever happened to that sweet ethical little thing I brought home from Abydos five years ago?"

"Oh, that's so romantic."

Daniel jumped like a cat whose tail had been stepped on and turned around to gaze uncertainly at a young woman barely contained by a fountain of pink tulle. She was holding onto a tall thin young man with a prominent Adam's apple whose arm she now squeezed. "I hope we're still saying things like that after five years."

O'Neill stared at them blankly for a moment then dredged up a reassuring smile. "I'm sure you will be."

"Bradley and I are getting hitched next month. My little sister beat me to it by twenty six days."

O'Neill shook Bradley by the hand. "Congratulations." He darted Daniel a look but the younger man was gazing vacantly into space, so obviously fantasizing about showers, clean sheets and hot food that O'Neill could practically smell the gravy. He nudged him in the ribs. "Say 'congratulations'."

Daniel started out of his reverie to say "Congratulations" brightly. As soon as they led the way, Daniel murmured, "Are they the bride and groom?"

"Darleen's the sister of the bride."

"What am I congratulating them for?"

"Never mind."

By the time they were swept into the crowded foyer of the main building, they were accepted as friends of Darleen and Bradley's. They were also assumed to be a couple although, perhaps luckily, Daniel was too distracted by the realization of how near he was to the hot shower he was craving to notice. O'Neill knew he probably should have corrected the wrong impression Darleen had gotten of them, but she seemed so pleased by the idea that they were still in love after five years together he didn't have the heart to rain on her parade.

"We only have the one room left." The manager looked between them uncertainly. "It's a little small to put in another bed."

"Oh, they don't mind sharing," Darleen told the man helpfully.

Daniel had obviously had his mouth open to say something else. He murmured in O'Neill's ear, "We don't?"

O'Neill forced a smile for the manager. "It's fine."

Daniel murmured, "You are going to shower before tonight, right?"

"Stop whining," O'Neill told him while still smiling at Darleen. "You're going to get food and a bed, which is what you said you wanted."

"Yes, but I was kind of hoping I'd have the bed to myself…"

O'Neill leant in close and whispered, "You're welcome to sleep on the floor."

Daniel gave one of his best martyred sighs and trudged wearily after the manager, carrying his suitcase as if it contained all the burdens of the world.

***

O'Neill enjoyed the evening immensely. The company was fun. The food was just as good as he remembered it, the music was loud and from an era he recognized, and Daniel being so oblivious of the way everyone thought they were a couple was amusing. He had at first been a little disconcerted by the way everyone just assumed he and Daniel were an item but then realized Darleen was not the type to keep such news to herself. They were effectively under her protection and as she was the sister of the bride and a force of nature in her own right, that was a very good place to be.

At three a.m. O'Neill looked across at Daniel, who was trying to look more awake than he obviously was while leaning against a gilt-painted pillar, and realized he really was going to have to let him go to sleep now. Daniel had a glass of something in his hand which he was drinking without looking at or possibly even tasting and it was obviously taking a considerable act of concentration on his part to stay conscious enough to converse with the man standing next to him. The man in question was Bradley's brother, John, who seemed to be impressed by their brazenness in turning up and letting everyone know they were a couple. He had told O'Neill at least three times that he thought they had a 'lot of balls'. O'Neill had reassured him they only had the usual two each but John had seemed to think that was an act of gay flirtation on O'Neill's part and had slapped him on the arm then waggled a finger under his nose before telling him he wasn't open to conversion. He'd then seemed pretty open to conversion to O'Neill in the way he'd stuck to Daniel like flypaper for the rest of the night.

Daniel, who had only with difficulty and some bullying on O'Neill's part been persuaded to get off the comfortable bed he'd collapsed onto his after his shower, and come and join the nice people downstairs, had somehow failed to notice all the gay allusions people had been making to them all evening. When a somewhat worse for wear Darleen had said she was sure that Jack of his was a very naughty boy sometimes, Daniel had just blinked at her in mild confusion before saying that he'd never been court-martialed yet, which everyone had taken as some great witticism probably dripping with sexual innuendo. When a woman in her fifties had noticed Daniel swaying with tiredness and offered him her chair he had been much too much of a gentleman to accept and had assured her that he'd rather stand. The gales of laughter this had elicited from people nearby had just baffled him even more. O'Neill had actually rather enjoyed the way John slapped him on the shoulder and told O'Neill he was a dog and no mistake. He'd given the man his best smug grin in reply then quietly led Daniel away from that part of the crush.

"What was that about?" Daniel enquired in confusion.

O'Neill pushed another drink into his hand. "Nothing. Local humor. Don't worry about it."

"Can I go to bed now?"

O'Neill grabbed a handful of peanuts and dropped them in Daniel's hand. "Don't be so anti-social."

"I'm tired!"

"Oh, stop whining." O'Neill had no intention of telling Daniel that he dreaded the thought of being alone in that room with just a slumbering Daniel for company. If he was up there hearing the noises of merriment down here there would be nothing to stop him remembering his own wedding; or to help him smother out the sound of the gunshot that had killed his marriage as cruelly as it had killed his son. Or to help him duck the then unavoidable truth that Sara was about to become the wife of another man. Perhaps it was unkind to keep a near-comatose-with-tiredness Daniel up long past his bedtime just so O'Neill had a familiar face to help him through this rehearsal for Sara's reception, but tough, he needed Daniel to be awake and with him more than Daniel needed his sleep. And anyway, Daniel could always sleep in the car tomorrow…

He propped Daniel up by the pillar and told him he'd be right back with another drink. By the time he returned, Daniel was so hemmed in by the crush of people there was no chance of escape, and John had caught up with him again and was asking him lots of questions to which Daniel was making more and more vague and irrelevant answers.

"So, how long have the two of you been together?" John nodded to O'Neill as he asked Daniel the question.

Watching Daniel closely, O'Neill suspected Daniel had got about one word of that question. He looked blank. Then noticed the enquiring look the man was sending in O'Neill's direction. Then made an effort to concentrate. "Oh…how long have Jack and I known each other? Um…about five or six years. It just seems longer sometimes." He darted O'Neill a reproachful look as he said the latter.

The man laughed and patted Daniel on the shoulder. "Know the feeling."

When Daniel stared into his glass as though he had no idea what it had recently contained or even what it was, O'Neill decided to take pity on him. "Time for bed," he said.

The look of pathetic gratitude Daniel gave him was really quite endearing. It was just a little unfortunate that John and a passing Darleen had completely mistaken the reason for Daniel's enthusiasm. O'Neill received more pats on the back, wagging fingers, and allusions to his obvious prowess with a smile and shrug before wishing everyone good night. While Daniel gazed between them all in bewilderment O'Neill took him by the elbow and led him gently away.

***

O'Neill was prepared for a fight over who got which side of the bed. Before he could claim the right side, however, Daniel had stepped out of his clothes then crawled under the covers wearing only his shorts to take up residence on the left side in a way that suggested only high explosives would dislodge him from it. O'Neill shrugged and began to undress. He brushed his teeth in the tiny bathroom, picked up the towel Daniel had dropped on the floor and put it over the radiator, then went back into the bedroom. When he switched off the bathroom light abruptly the bedroom was bathed in darkness, before the blue-rinsed gleam from the moonlight leached softly through the curtains to turn everything silver. He could see the outline of Daniel's face, the movement when he blinked and his eyelashes were briefly illuminated by the moonlight.

As he climbed under the covers, O'Neill thought how ridiculous it was that any man should have eyelashes that long and that thick. As he lay down, he saw Daniel was watching him covertly from the pillow.

"What?" O'Neill enquired wearily.

"Are you okay?"

He wriggled down in the bed before he answered. It wasn't the largest in the world but it was just about possible to get two full grown men into it without either of them actually hanging over the side. He supposed it was just lucky he and Daniel didn't have a problem with being in close physical proximity to one another. He could feel the warmth of Daniel's body only an inch from his own; an odd awareness spreading through him of just how much of Daniel's bare skin was a breath away from his. He could smell the alcohol Daniel had been drinking on his breath.

"Jack…?"

"Yes, I'm okay." O'Neill inhaled cautiously. Some coffee liqueur and champagne, plus the same soap he could smell on his hands from the bathroom, a shampoo that smelt of citrus. He probably smelt of beer and peanuts and toothpaste.

There was another pause before Daniel said, "I'm sorry about Sara." As O'Neill didn't say anything, he added, "That it didn't work out."

"It didn't work out six years ago, Daniel."

"I know but…"

O'Neill reached out and touched his bare shoulder gently. "It's okay, really. I miss being married but she moved on a long time ago. I'm glad she's happy."

The silence stretched so long he thought Daniel might have fallen asleep. "I miss being married too."

O'Neill tightened his grip on his shoulder, feeling the muscle under Daniel's unexpectedly silky skin. Daniel looked up at him, gaze thoughtful and sad. O'Neill could practically see the memories of Sha're reflected in his eyes. He thought about him and Sara and Charlie, then he thought about Daniel and Sha're and Shifu. At least he had managed to have his wife and his child together in the same place and at the same time even if hadn't been for long enough. Nothing like long enough. Daniel had never even had that.

O'Neill flopped back onto the mattress, his fingers sliding from Daniel's skin. "Being single really sucks."

Daniel's sigh gusted against his left ear. "It really, really does."

O'Neill gazed up at the ceiling. Someone had papered it. That was a bitch of a job. He wondered if they'd got in professionals or if the owner had done it himself. He'd never been that good at modern DIY. He was better at the cabin by the lake stuff. He could chop wood, make fires, even occasionally catch a fish. He'd never got to grips with rewiring. He liked putting up shelves and hammering in nails. He was a bad cook. His attention span seemed to be getting shorter with each passing year; so did his temper. His knees and his back now protested loudly when put under any kind of pressure. He liked loud opera but quiet parties. He was becoming increasingly anti-social and was becoming less tolerant of small talk and strangers. He had a checkered past and a secret present. A good catch he probably wasn't.

When he mentally tried to draft out an ad for a singles column he couldn't come up with anything honest that made him sound remotely appealing.

He looked sideways at Daniel. "How does Carter manage?"

"Lots of meaningless sex with sailors."

O'Neill gaped at him. "What? You're kidding?"

Daniel looked blank for a moment and then giggled that ridiculously endearing schoolboy giggle of his that made him look and sound about twelve. "That's her stock answer when drunken marines make crass remarks about her being single at SGC parties. Didn't you know? It's really good fun watching their jaws drop."

O'Neill realized his mouth was still hanging open and closed it with an audible clicking of teeth. "How does she really manage?"

"I think she likes her own company and she's writing a book on something… astrophysical." Daniel wrinkled his nose apologetically. "I'm not sure exactly what it's about. Something to do with wormhole physics and quantum… something or other."

"What about you?"

Daniel didn't answer for a moment; then he grimaced. "I read a lot. And I try not to think about what might have been."

Again O'Neill pictured Daniel, Sha're and Shifu standing on the sands of Abydos with Kasuf beaming behind them, while Daniel waved him goodbye. Just one big happy family. He experienced a pang of guilt that a part of him felt excluded and almost relieved that hadn't happened. He wanted it for Daniel, but he also wanted Daniel to be a part of his life. Wanted to hang onto this ridiculous intensity of friendship that was dependent upon them being what they were: lonely misfits whom there was no one else to love. They had both been the engineers of their own destruction. He'd had a wife and a son he loved and had destroyed both of them with carelessness and then self-pitying silence. Daniel's curiosity had caused Sha're to be vulnerable to Apophis' raid on Abydos. They'd both screwed up and other people had suffered for their mistakes. The fact they'd suffered too didn't really make any of it any better.

"What about you, Jack?" Daniel asked softly.

"I think about what might have been." O'Neill sighed. "And then I think about what is and I remind myself there are good things about what is as well as what might have been." He turned his head in time to see the surprise in Daniel's moonlit eyes. Those really were ridiculously long eyelashes on a guy.

"Oh. That's very…philosophical."

"Well, I tried the drinking myself insensible while thinking about swallowing my gun route. Didn't really work as well."

He saw Daniel wince. The naked compassion in the younger man's blue eyes sending a curious shiver through him. He almost said 'Don't mind so much, Daniel'. But he had to admit there was a part of him that liked the fact it hurt Daniel that much to think of him being hurt. Then he thought about his own reaction when he'd had to watch Daniel watching baby Shifu and then child Shifu disappearing from his life, taking with him the last link to his dead wife, and realized he was no better than Daniel was at cutting off from a friend's pain.

Impulsively he reached out and patted Daniel gently on the shoulder. "You're one of the good things I remind myself about, by the way."

Daniel's eyes widened and his mouth opened, expression a touching mixture of embarrassment and pleased surprise. He dropped his gaze to mutter, "Thanks." If they'd been outside, O'Neill swore he would have been rubbing his toe in the dirt. The muttered "You too…" from Daniel was so low he barely heard it.

"What?"

Daniel grimaced in embarrassment before muttering, "You're one of the good things I remind myself about as well."

O'Neill felt that warmth inside himself again. He'd stopped being surprised by Daniel's ability to hurt him a few years back but he was obviously still capable of being surprised by Daniel's capacity to move him. He had, if he was honest, got a kick from very early in their relationship out of the way Daniel responded to his praise. It had been a little addictive to discover this very clever geek guy from such a totally different background actually cared what a career soldier like O'Neill thought of his opinion. And he'd also been very aware of the way Daniel had been pretty much shipwrecked in O'Neill's world. Daniel's own world of academia had rejected him. His chosen world of Abydos was lost to him. That had made him a guest in O'Neill's world and O'Neill had been very conscious of it; images of Daniel's tearful farewell to the people of Abydos burned into his memory like a brand. He'd taken on the responsibility for Daniel; for being his guide through the strange new environment of the United States Air Force; and had needed every scrap of patience he'd packed for the journey. He'd expected some gratitude and had gotten rather less than he sometimes felt he deserved; but the friendship and companionship he'd been rewarded with had been a totally unexpected bonus. So were the moments like these, when he found himself glowing with a strange mixture of pride, humility and tenderness because Daniel had just told him he mattered to him and was a positive force in his life.

He turned his head to look at Daniel. "Thanks."

Daniel returned his gaze, those ridiculous eyelashes picked out perfectly by the moonlight slanting across his left shoulder and lending a silvery sheen to his skin. "You're welcome. Just don't quote me on it tomorrow when you make me get up at six a.m."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

Daniel closed his eyes. "Night, Jack."

O'Neill looked at him for a moment, lying there next to him with his head on the pillow, and felt a fierce burn of friendship. It was like being back in that monk's place on Kheb; the difference between a candle flame and an inferno. Tenderness and affection and satisfaction that this friendship existed; that Daniel existed; and that in this time, this place, and this universe, he and Daniel had made this unlikely friendship work so well. "Night, Daniel," he said softly, but Daniel didn't stir, his breathing already slow and even as he drowsed into dreams.

As he closed his eyes, he was very aware of Daniel's heat next to his; of the familiar length and strength of a body he knew almost as well as his own. He knew the rhythm of his breathing as well as he knew the ticking of his bedside clock. As he drifted into slumber, it occurred to O'Neill that the only other person he had ever known this well, or been this comfortable with, was the woman he was traveling to watch get married to another man.

***

As they reached the house he realized he couldn't go inside. He had driven all this way to be here for this ceremony, this moment, but now he couldn't be a witness to it. He had been traveling in a dream state, anaesthetized against the full impact of what he was doing, and now the numbness had worn off, he was awake and aware, and he could not watch his wife get married to someone else.

He pulled into the parking place automatically, switched off the ignition and was momentarily deafened by the silence. When he made no move to get out of the car, he thought Daniel would say something, but as the moment and the silence stretched, Daniel said nothing at all. O'Neill turned to look at him and saw Daniel with that look on his face that made his heart turn over every time. The way Daniel looked when Shifu was taken away from him again; except now Daniel was gazing fixedly at him, eyes bright with the reflection of O'Neill's unhappiness. Daniel looked so close to tears on his behalf that the pain O'Neill was feeling was halved as cleanly as a grapefruit sliced in two.

"I'm so sorry, Jack."

O'Neill looked at the house inside of which the ceremony was taking place that he was too chickenshit to witness; white boarding softened by the grayish snaking of branches from which a profusion of mauve-purple wisteria, extravagant as a grapevine, dripped a fragrance of unbearable sweetness. The groom's parents' house. A large house; gracious and comfortable with arched windows and lawns all around it so green the turf looked as if it had been laid only yesterday. The kind of house Sara had always wanted and they had never been able to afford. His voice sounded hoarse. "Me too."

When he looked back at Daniel he could still see everything he was feeling in Daniel's eyes. Except in Daniel's eyes he was a tragic hero; someone wronged by fate and god and man; someone from whom a beloved son had been taken; a beloved wife driven away; a terrible emptiness left in its place that could never be filled when he deserved so much more than a cold bed and a colder silence and the sound of his heartbeat too loud in the darkness. There was everything in Daniel's eyes except for his own guilt. Abruptly he couldn't bear to see Daniel hurting so much on his behalf.

"I fucked up."

"No – " Daniel reached out to him but didn't actually touch him, leaving O'Neill over aware of the place on his arm Daniel's fingers hadn't quite reached.

"Yes." He reached out and patted Daniel's leg gently. "I wasn't there when she needed me. I was never there when she needed me."

"Once." Daniel swallowed hard and O'Neill was fascinated by the way the tears glistened in his eyes, unshed; huge blue eyes glittering with grief for him. "You weren't there once."

"It was a lot more than once, Daniel, and anyway, that was the time when it counted."

Daniel ducked his head, defeated by the truth, still fighting it every step of the way. He didn't want O'Neill to be wrong. He wanted him to be wronged instead. But Daniel had too great a sense of natural justice to blame Sara. O'Neill watched him wrestling with it, trying and failing to blame her. Daniel was better than him. He'd had less compunction about blaming Sha're. Even though she'd been guiltless, a part of him had designated her the enemy a long time before Teal'c had been forced to kill her to save the man she loved from the Goa'uld who had stolen her soul. Daniel sagged in defeat; refusing to accept O'Neill's guilt but unable to apportion the blame elsewhere however hard he tried.

"She lost so much." Daniel probably hadn't meant to say it aloud but perhaps he'd felt O'Neill was owed an apology; a reason why Daniel couldn't bring himself to dislike the woman who had chosen to reject his friend.

"Yes." O'Neill nodded. "Because of me she lost her child."

Daniel looked up at him, eyelashes wet and one tear drop glistening in them like a sliver of diamond. "She lost you."

The way Daniel gazed at him as he said it made O'Neill feel as if someone had turned him inside out while the world went into slow-motion. Daniel was gazing at him as if to lose him would be the worst thing that could ever befall anyone; the ache in his voice; the look on his face; a kind of breathless horror behind it because that had happened to one person and could happen to someone else; could even happen to Daniel. He was sure time was suspended for that second; a sand picture slowly, slowly falling into place; not a leaf stirring anywhere. And then the doors of the house were thrown back and music and people spilled out onto the grass; rose petals and rice tossed into the air to hang upon a fugitive breeze. When O'Neill turned his head to look at Sara laughing on the arm of another man, he felt as if there was only a part of his mind left to deal with it; another part was wrestling with something he didn't understand; something significant; something terribly important and strange and possibly even wonderful. But when he risked a glance at Daniel, Daniel didn't seem to be aware of anything at all, except that O'Neill's ex-wife was now married to another man. Daniel touched him tentatively on the shoulder, looking past him to the happy couple. "You okay?"

O'Neill darted him a glance over his shoulder; still shaken; trying to snatch another clue, but Daniel was just a concerned friend, letting him know he was there for him; trying not to do or say the wrong thing; being very…Daniel. The significant moment had passed without giving O'Neill time to identify it while Daniel didn't seem to even know it had occurred.

O'Neill looked back at Sara, the way she was laughing; looking so young and so happy; a beam of sunlight gilding her short fair hair. The man holding her hand was gazing at her as though he couldn't believe how lucky he was or how lovely she was; their fingers interlaced. O'Neill got out of the car on automatic pilot, very aware of Daniel getting out of the other side, and coming around to stand next to him, watching him carefully to try to see if he was okay. He felt a warmth by his left shoulder that was recognizably Daniel even before he turned his head to check. He stared at him for a moment fixedly, still trying to work out what it was that he'd almost realized a minute before. He was still looking at Daniel in baffled confusion when Daniel's mouth opened in an 'o' of surprise and he started forward to catch the bouquet Sara had thrown with such abandon high into the air.

That was when their eyes met. O'Neill and the woman who had once loved him; still did love him albeit in a different way, as he saw at once by the softening of her face, the way the laughter disappeared to be replaced by tenderness and compassion, as she saw him for the first time in too many years. He found a reassuring smile from somewhere and waved. He saw her new husband register who he was; saw him squeeze Sara's hand gently, a comfort gesture, giving her support and strength to face the ordeal that O'Neill represented. She waved back and then began to pick her way across the lawn to meet him; her heels spiking into the soft turf. When O'Neill turned to Daniel he was still holding the bouquet he had caught so instinctively, embarrassed and nonplussed, turning it over in his hands as if he had no idea what it was or what he should do with it. Seeing Daniel at a loss made O'Neill feel as if he was back on familiar ground again.

"Jack…" Her voice was soft, her eyes gentle.

O'Neill smiled at her. "You look lovely, Mrs Patterson. Still can't throw worth a damn though."

She smiled back, relief unmistakable. "I was aiming for you all the time."

Daniel leant across to say congratulations to Sara's husband, Gordon. O'Neill shook the man's hand firmly and told him how lucky he was. Gordon told him he knew and said with what seemed to be genuine warmth how glad he was O'Neill had made it; how glad they both were he'd come. Sara introduced Daniel to Gordon while darting O'Neill an enquiring look he didn't entirely understand. Daniel offloaded the bouquet onto a bridesmaid who giggled at him flirtatiously. Then Gordon led Daniel away tactfully so O'Neill could have a moment with Sara. Daniel gave him an anxious look over his shoulder; O'Neill gave him a reassuring look in return. Sara slipped her hand through his arm and squeezed it tight. "Are you okay?"

He patted her hand gently. "I will be."

As she gave him the guided tour of the gardens, they talked about the journey. He told her about the wedding reception and must have made it sound funnier than it had been because she laughed, reminding him how much he loved the sound of her laugh, and how long it had been since he'd heard it. She told him about her in-laws and the way they had welcomed her into their lives; about Gordon's first wife who had died of cancer, and the two little girls she would be inheriting along with the family home his parents were giving them as a wedding gift as the place was too large for them to manage. O'Neill realized that at least one of them had found a happy ending of sorts. He had taken her son away and Gordon had provided two daughters. The happy ending hadn't come from him but at least it had come.

"I'm happy for you." He bent to kiss her cheek and it was odd to be bestowing a fatherly brush of the lips against a face which had once been his to claim, but as her hair brushed against his skin and he smelt her perfume he realized their roles truly had changed forever now.

"I know you are, Jack." She looked up at him with what was undoubtedly love in her eyes, but a very different love from the one they'd once had. It was the way a friend might look at him. "I knew if you saw me and saw Gordon you'd be happy for both of us and know I was okay. I just wasn't sure that you'd want to come."

He grimaced for her perspicacity. "That makes two of us."

As they reached the garage, she looked rueful. "I don't know where you're going to sleep."

He looked at her in surprise. "You said you could put me up."

"You, yes, but…I didn't expect you to bring Daniel."

He felt a flicker of indignation. "You told me I could bring a friend if I wanted to."

"I know." She was laughing at him again, the way she'd done in the old days, mocking but fond. "But I didn't think you’d bring a…friend."

He blinked at her in confusion. "Well, what did you expect me to bring? A dog?"

She opened the garage door to reveal a room freshly-painted in readiness, with new primrose-colored drapes and a conspicuously double bed. "A girlfriend." At his look of surprise, she rolled her eyes. "Well, it is traditional. If you'd been the one getting married, I'd have taken a man to the reception even if I'd had to hire one for the occasion."

He grinned. "So you banked on my bruised masculine ego ensuring I'd drag some woman along here just to prove to you I wasn't a lonely old bachelor?"

She looked around the garage bedroom ruefully. "Well, you used to be a little more predictable, Jack O'Neill." She gave him an appraising look. "And to be honest I just assumed you'd have a steady girlfriend. You were always having to fight them off when I was married to you."

He held up a finger. "That was just your imagination. And no, I don't have a girlfriend, steady or unsteady."

"Aren't you dating at all?" She seemed nonplussed by that.

He shrugged. "No."

She shook her head. "I don't know where Daniel's going to sleep. We've got Gordon's cousins in every bedroom."

"We can share." He shrugged again. "We've done it before."

She looked even more nonplussed by that. "Really? Won't he mind?"

He couldn't help noticing the way she automatically assumed it would be Daniel who objected. "Why would he?"

She gave him a sideways look uncannily like the one Daniel sometimes employed. "Does Daniel know you snore and steal the covers?"

"Hey, he grinds his teeth in his sleep and dribbles. If anyone should be protesting about sharing it's me."

She laughed again, but the look she gave him was searching as if she thought he was concealing something and was trying to uncover it. She'd looked at him like that in the past when she suspected him of infidelity. Even though he wasn't concealing anything that look from her coupled with that weird moment of near-revelation in the car earlier made him feel guilty. Which was ridiculous, because if he was concealing anything he was concealing it from himself as well.

Sara was doing what she'd always done, tidying automatically, adjusting the drapes a fraction, checking for dust, not quite looking at him, yet keeping him in her radar as she was also being the good hostess. "You must be close – to not mind bringing him here."

To not mind him seeing you being vulnerable. He got the unspoken message and nodded. "We are."

She glanced at him again. "Does he have any family?"

He thought about Daniel's personnel file; about Nick going off with those aliens with barely a backwards glance. "Not of his own."

Her enquiring gaze demanded more information. O'Neill sighed inwardly, sometimes it sucked that so much of their lives were classified. "He was married. His wife died. He still sees her family sometimes but they live a long way away."

"No children?"

He thought about Shifu. He always thought about Shifu when he imagined Daniel trying to date anyone; to answer these questions. These were the fundamental building blocks of a relationship; the first tentative foundations. What did he do for a living? Who were his friends? His wife. His children or lack of them. Did he deny Shifu as O'Neill was about to do or did he make some complicated explanation? How could you explain within an Earth culture the existence of a child born of rape by an alien parasite, rendered a perpetual fugitive from the System Lords by the genetic memory inside him, and who had been born three years before but was now roughly ten? How did he explain Oma Desala? Did he say the child's godmother had custody? What if the potential girlfriend asked to meet his late wife's in-laws? It was hopeless. Daniel would have to start every relationship with a lie then shore it up with more lies.

"Jack…?"

He snapped out of his reverie to find Sara looking at him anxiously. He forced a smile. "No. No children. They'd only been married a year when she died." Another lie. They’d only been married an Abydos year when she’d been abducted. Daniel had gone on hoping for another three years he might actually get her back. Too complicated to explain though.

"How did she die?"

Our alien friend killed her because the Goa'uld symbiote inside her was making her kill Daniel. I got to carry the corpse home while it was still warm.

"Cancer." Well, the System Lords were a cancer in the universe. It was as close as he could get to anything even vaguely resembling the truth.

"That's so sad." Sara was looking out of the window in distress. O'Neill crossed to where she was and saw that Daniel was out by a fishpond, crouched down, helping two girls in ruffled white dresses with outsized pink bows throw breadcrumbs to the fish. "He must have been devastated."

O'Neill thought about a closed off resentful Daniel shutting him and Teal'c and Hammond out. All the authority figures who'd failed him; the protectors who hadn't protected him from having his heart ripped out by a staff weapon blast through silk and skin and flesh; the saviors of the defenseless who hadn't managed to save his wife. "Yeah. He was."

They were ruined for normal life. He'd been kidding himself for a while now but the truth was no one would want them gift-wrapped. Even though Daniel was still fairly young and undeniably beautiful; brilliant; funny; compassionate; ethical; patient…well, sometimes. Lots of good things in a very attractive packaging anyway. But he was still damaged goods. Just like O'Neill.

When he turned back to Sara she was giving him another one of those searching looks, the ones that could lay bare his soul. She touched him gently on the arm, opened her mouth to say something, looked back at Daniel, then feigned a cough before patting him on the arm. "I'm glad you have a friend, Jack."

He blinked in mild hurt. "What, you don't think I used to have friends?"

"People you go on missions with aren't the same as friends."

He carefully didn't look at Daniel. Even though he was the proof that she was wrong and sometimes they were it wasn't exactly a winning argument he could share. "Sometimes they can be."

She shook her head. "Would you have brought Kawalsky to my wedding?"

"No."

"There are people you can rely on to watch your back in the field and there are people you take to your ex-wife's wedding because you need the company. You've always been good at finding the first group, Jack. I'm just glad you've got a friend who fits into the second one as well."

She gave him another gentle pat and then left him in the primrose-colored room, the faintest smell of fresh paint still lingering, the drapes flapping as the door opened and closed, but he stayed by the window looking at Daniel. The person, who although Sara didn't know it, fitted into both categories, fulfilled both functions in his life. He felt rocked by the realization of the roles Daniel seemed to have slipped into occupying in his life. It had never occurred to him for a minute to take anyone except Daniel to this wedding. Trying to find a woman to accompany him hadn't been an option he'd even considered. Was that strange? Was it perhaps even a problem he should be solving in some way or was it just a part of his life that was uniquely his and he shouldn't need to defend?

The last time he'd got a glimmering there might be something a little unusual about his and Daniel's relationship had been when Daniel's appendix had burst. The sheer raw nerve-scraping terror of his own reaction had frightened him. He'd tried to work out how he usually acted with male friends, attempting to treat Daniel the same way he would have done Kawalsky, but only succeeded in coming across as crass, unfeeling, and false. At the same time he'd found himself acting equally crassly with Carter. He'd come very close to forfeiting not only the liking but also the respect of both Daniel and Carter during that period and his self-respect had taken quite a knock as well. It had taken him a long time to laboriously reconstruct his relationships with the two of them until he could be himself with them again. He was back to the crossroads he'd been at almost two years ago when he'd taken what was so emphatically the wrong route. So what was the right route? What were the options he was apparently trying to avoid without even knowing what they were or why he might be avoiding them?

He tapped on the window and Daniel looked up in surprise. Their eyes met and he waved. Daniel smiled and waved back before handing the tallest of the two little girls some more bread to crumble, pointing the fish out to her. Sara's new husband came up behind them and touched Daniel on the shoulder. O'Neill looked at that other man's hand on Daniel's arm, acutely aware of it, the square tips of Gordon's fingers, the way the cloth of Daniel's sleeve was crumpled by the light pressure. Daniel looked up at the man and smiled, they were sharing a joke, probably about the fish. When Sara came and stood next to them, the taller of the little girls reached up to her and Sara held out her hands. They spun around together in the sunlight, leaning back, fair hair glinting. They looked like mother and daughter, laughing and spinning together. Gordon and Daniel and the youngest child turned their heads to watch Sara with her head thrown back, laughing; shedding years with every circle.

"You'll get dizzy!" Gordon shouted it to them, laughing as well.

"That's why we're doing it!" Sara and the child shouted it back to him in unison. Something they'd said and done many times before.

Daniel was wiping his fingers on his pants legs and his smile faded first, turning to look concernedly in O'Neill's direction, thinking of all O'Neill's losses. But O'Neill was feeling a curious weightlessness come upon him, because Sara truly had moved on. She was no longer his responsibility and she was no longer just a woman whose husband's stupidity had cost her child, her partner, and her happiness. She had found happiness again. She had found a partner again. She had even found motherhood again. He was redundant and unnecessary, which should have hurt him more than it did, but his strongest emotion was relief because although nothing and no one could give her back what she had lost, she wasn't still marooned in that grief and that moment. She had moved on to a different life; a fuller life perhaps than she had ever had when married to a serviceman who was emotionally absent as often when he was with her as when he was physically away on missions.

"Are you okay?" He started as Daniel appeared right outside the window, voice muffled by the double-glazing. He seemed slightly dazzled by the sunlight, squinting into the darker room to see O'Neill, putting one hand tentatively against the glass as he did so.

On an impulse, O'Neill reached up and put his left palm against the glass to mirror Daniel's right one. "Fine."

Daniel looked at their hands together against the window, surprised and curious, then looked back at O'Neill. "Are you sure?"

Before O'Neill could answer, it was Daniel's turn to jump as a flurry of white appeared to take his other hand and pull him away. The smallest child saying: "Dance with me…"

"Okay." Daniel laughed.

O'Neill was laughing too until he saw where the child was leading him. "Dance with me and Polly."

Polly was the pretty bridesmaid who had taken the bouquet from him. She had softly curling dark hair that reached to her chin, a heart-shaped face, and a mischievous smile. Daniel was dragged up to her to stop in mild embarrassment as he realized there was an adult in the picture, but she was all smiles and her curtsey was so perfectly executed O'Neill had no doubt she'd had ballet lessons once. When she took Daniel's right hand in her left he felt as though she'd wiped out the imprint of his palm through the window; his sudden acute of awareness of her fingers touching Daniel's like a burr under his skin.

Sara and the oldest child were collapsed on the grass, now giggling, breathless dizzy, while Gordon sprinkled breadcrumbs on them. A circle closed to him but he was happy to be an onlooker. He could never forgive himself for costing their child his life, but he might now at least be able to forgive himself for ruining the life of a woman he had loved. Sara's life was different and she would always be someone who had lost her child, but it wasn't ruined, and the sound of her laughter was shedding whole boulders of guilt from his back.

But when he looked back at the other circle of Daniel, the pretty bridesmaid, and the little girl; Daniel smiling at the child he didn't have but O'Neill knew he would have liked to be the father of; the bridesmaid smiling at the handsome man she presumably didn't have but no doubt would like to get to know better; he experienced a sudden hostility and exclusion that chilled him through to the depths of what felt suspiciously like his heart.

***

He'd expected to feel jealousy. He'd come ready prepared for the emotion. He'd envisaged an evening exactly like this; spent in an overheated room with a crush of strangers, the chatter of thirty different conversations throwing out the occasional tantalizing phrase, too much alcohol and not enough glasses, too much food gradually losing its perfect shape as it sagged or crumbled onto its serving plates. And on the far side of the room, where he couldn't get to them without using his elbows, but always dominating his vision and his thoughts, someone he loved in conversation with a stranger.

Except in his imagination it had been Sara he'd been focused on, and Gordon at whom his hostility was aimed; not Daniel and Gordon's cousin, Polly, from Wilmington.

It hadn't been too much of a shock to acknowledge that he loved Daniel. The SGC had come along at the time when he needed it most and he had bonded with the people in it in a way he had never done in the past. He loved Carter too. He loved Hammond. If he stopped squirming from acknowledging it like a schoolboy having his face washed by an aunt, he loved Teal'c as well. They were his friends and his family. They were people he needed so much that even when he was getting away from them he always ended up taking one of them away with him for company. So, it was not difficult to admit that he loved Daniel, even though he had never quite done so in the past. But to stand in this corner and watch Daniel talking to a girl who clearly found him attractive and who was undeniably pretty, and admit the feeling it was eliciting in him was jealousy…that was difficult. It was especially difficult because it was the same feeling he'd experienced in the past and in the past he'd given it a very different name, and believed, absolutely, that he was being honest in his labeling.

He'd felt like this when he'd watched Sha're kissing Daniel in front of them all. It had just seemed unnecessary to him. As if she was parading him like a prize. He'd felt a spasm of hostility and irritation. Later he'd told himself he must have been mistaken and that he'd been amused, even impressed by that liplock she'd planted on the befuddled Daniel. Now he wondered honestly if she'd felt threatened by their arrival on the planet. Daniel had been spending a lot of time in that cartouche room. He'd been trying to dial up other worlds. It might have seemed to her that Daniel was getting restless. She'd felt the need to give him a reminder about exactly why he'd stayed and what he'd be giving up if he left. For the first time he not only understood what she'd been up to, he sympathized. Looking at Daniel talking to Polly, he felt just the same way. He wanted to reach out, wave his hand in front of Daniel's eyes and say 'Pay attention to me – I'm your friend, not her. Talk to me instead.'

O'Neill looked at how clear Daniel's skin was, really extraordinarily young-looking for a man in his mid-thirties. He looked as if he never needed to shave even though O'Neill had stood right there and watched him shave. His mouth was disconcertingly beautiful. It still felt weird to be noticing things like that about another guy. But perhaps on a subliminal level he always had noticed things like that about Daniel. He'd felt a peculiar mixture of possessiveness and protectiveness when Daniel had been in tense situations in the past; when women had come onto him at parties or off-world celebrations; or when he'd caught men looking at him in subtly wrong ways. The ones who looked hostile; the ones who looked lustful. He remembered that terrible jolt of wrongness that had gone through him when those two guys in the hospital had pinned Daniel down right in front of him; the shock later when he'd said he was fine, had seemed fine, but there had been those bruises on his arms; contusions he'd witnessed being made and not prevented. Daniel's body was so familiar to him; there was barely an inch of it he didn't know; but he'd never touched it in the way he wanted to touch it now; never thought about touching it either, although he suspected he'd been stopping himself for a while because that wasn't a place he could allow himself to go.

There was his reaction to finding out what Hathor had done to Daniel while they were both out of their minds. Disliking Hathor was justifiable, of course. So was disliking Shyla, given what she'd done to all of them, and particularly what she'd done to Daniel just because she was lonely and wanted to jump him. His reaction to Ke'ra was a little harder to explain because when he'd been pointing that gun at her just itching to pull the trigger it hadn't been because of the old woman who'd infiltrated their computer system or who'd unleashed the Vorlix on that unsuspecting populace, it had been because of the young, pretty woman whose scent he'd smelt on Daniel's skin in the corridor, the one Daniel had hurt him and Teal'c to defend; the one who'd slept with his friend.

O'Neill sipped his drink and looked back across at Daniel and Polly. Yes, this was the same way he'd felt when he'd known Daniel was in that bedroom with Ke'ra. Back then he'd told himself he was worried about Daniel because his friend was so emotionally vulnerable after the death of Sha're and might do something on the rebound he'd later regret. But Daniel wasn't emotionally vulnerable now, and Sha're had been dead for two years. As his friend, shouldn't he be rejoicing in the fact Daniel was getting to do something as normal as have a flirtation with a pretty girl? Shouldn't he be hoping this would lead to something? Shouldn't he want Daniel to at least get some sex out of it?

Daniel was going to get a crick in his neck talking to her. She was slim and dark and her face was expressive, very responsive to his moods, laughing at his jokes, letting him know with lots of subtle signals she found him fascinating and attractive. She was only about five foot four and Daniel towered over her. He sometimes forgot Daniel was six foot. He was two inches shorter than O'Neill. Could look positively small next to Teal'c. He knew him so well he saw him as a whole entity rather than an outer wrapping; so his awareness of Daniel's past, his vulnerability, the need he elicited in O'Neill and Teal'c to protect him, caused him to see someone as fragile as he was strong. Perhaps Daniel got a little fed up with that, being loomed over by men older, taller, and stronger than he was who saw him as someone in need of their protection. Perhaps it was making him feel all toasty inside to have this girl whose head only came up to his chest looking up at him with such open admiration and laughing at his jokes.

O'Neill felt abruptly old, and trapped in his masculinity. This was who he was. He could be vulnerable, certainly, but he couldn't be feminine. He was someone older, taller, and stronger than Daniel, and of the same gender. He and Daniel were closer than most married couples; had more shared history than most entire families; and knew each other so well they could tell what the other one was thinking so completely they didn't even question it these days. But some woman Daniel had never met before today could claim his attention in a way O'Neill never could just by virtue of being female. The same way Sha're had a few hours into the sands of Abydos. She'd looked at him, taken her clothes off, they'd had a couple of stilted conversations and bang, Daniel was married to her and fancied himself in love. Okay, had been in love. But he'd been receptive to Sha're's advances because she was a girl. Just as he was receptive to Polly's advances just because she was a girl. The fact they had no shared references and he couldn't tell her what he did for a living apparently didn't so much as figure because she had breasts and a uterus…

O'Neill wondered what the hell he was doing. He was standing here getting irritable with Daniel because Daniel liked girls. But he liked girls too so what was his problem with Daniel liking them? Why did it suddenly seem irritatingly shallow and superficial of Daniel to be interested in another human being primarily on the basis of her gender when that was pretty much what straight guys did at parties, particularly when they hadn't had sex in so long their right hand had calluses.

Why wasn't O'Neill answering those glances that very attractive brunette in the figure-hugging dress had sent in his direction so he could get some sex tonight as well? Why was he standing here having to make a conscious effort not to crush the glass he was holding in annoyance because Polly had just picked some piece of fluff from Daniel's jacket as though she had a right to touch him like that? Why wasn't he smirking knowingly and feeling happy Daniel was finally going to be getting some?

Because he didn't want Daniel getting any. Not with Polly. Not with any woman. Not with anyone but him.

Stupidest of all he didn't even know if he wanted Daniel to be getting any from him either. He wasn't even sure about the mechanics of them getting any from each other. He just felt they had a commitment to one another; an unspoken connection a third party would break; that it would be a betrayal of their relationship, whatever their relationship might be, for Daniel to sleep with someone else. That, he had to admit, might be the subtext of a lot of male friendships; a vague feeling of betrayal when some women came upon the scene; but this wasn't vague or subtextual; this was knife in the guts; anger in the veins, simmering resentment that he was being cheated on blatantly and in full view of everyone.

Which was possibly another faint warning bell his and Daniel's friendship might have crossed a few lines of normalcy at some point…

He realized that his strongest feeling was one of resentful jealousy because that girl might get to sleep with Daniel tonight. That was such a powerful emotion it was completely overwhelming the part of him reeling in shock because hey, hadn’t something kind of momentous just happened? Wasn't the important point the fact he was jealous of Daniel when he should be jealous of Sara…? Didn't that mean he wasn't in fact as heterosexual as he thought he was? And what about his career? And 'don't ask, don't tell' and did that mean he was gay now and had he been gay for a long time and…

He just didn't have time for all that irrelevant crap. Mid-life crisis yadda yadda yadda. The point was Daniel was going to have sex with that girl unless he did something about it; might even start having a full-blown relationship with that girl and O'Neill had just realized he really didn't want that to happen. He also thought, perhaps wrongly, that he wouldn't be feeling this overwhelming sense of disbelief and betrayal if he and Daniel weren't already in a kind of relationship. Okay, maybe it was the kind they didn't actually know about, but given how he was feeling right now and given how he'd reacted to similar situations in the past, he'd been in the same state of mind regarding his relationship with Daniel for…well, years really. So it could be argued that he and Daniel had actually been a couple for a while now, and the fact neither of them had noticed they were a couple shouldn't excuse Daniel from basically cheating on him. Of course, there was always the possibility that his feelings were totally unrequited and Daniel didn't just not know they were a couple but actually thought they weren't, but he didn't think that was the case. He thought Daniel had just been going along in the same blissful state of ignorance he had and that had misled him into thinking he was single and could sleep with damned girlies that came onto him at parties but in fact he was as committed to the relationship as O'Neill was…

O'Neill looked down at the glass in his hand and mentally totted up how much he'd had to drink. Rather a lot actually. Only to be expected when one was the ex-husband of a radiantly happy woman who had just married someone else. Perhaps slightly less to be expected of a pissed off Air Force officer who was pitching a hissy fit about the prospect of his best friend getting laid. Still, he did acknowledge he'd been throwing down the alcohol like prohibition was coming back any minute.

When he looked back at Daniel and Polly they were heading out onto the terrace. Damn, and there was the moon shining and the stars twinkling and Daniel being all melancholy because he would be missing Sha're like stink and no doubt remembering his wedding and how brave she'd been and how beautiful, and if he closed his eyes and let Polly kiss him maybe he could pretend it was Sha're just for a brief moment.

O'Neill thought about his options. He could let Polly have her way with Daniel and for his part get stinking drunk and then go to the garage and sleep there alone and then have a blazing row with Daniel at the first opportunity and leave him totally bewildered and hurt and angry. Or he could go and ask to speak to Daniel and explain it was important and they really needed to talk and if Polly was someone Daniel was seriously interested in who was seriously interested in him they could exchange phone numbers and keep in touch and him putting a crimp in their courtship for this one evening wasn't going to screw anything up permanently. The first way Polly got to jump Daniel, which was bad. But the second way he had to admit to Daniel that his feelings were no longer just friendly, which was also bad. However, even that didn't feel quite as bad at the moment as the letting Polly jump Daniel option while he did nothing about it except get drunk and obnoxious, in the process undoubtedly making himself all that much easier to dump in favor of a pretty girl who laughed at Daniel's jokes.

As he moved decisively in the direction of the terrace, he was intercepted with the grace and style of a lioness cutting a wounded wildebeest out of the pack.

"It's…Jack, isn’t it?"

He found himself staring at a magnificent pair of breasts. They swelled enticingly in a way that seemed to defy gravity, barely contained by a black dress that was so perfectly cut to show off its wearer's figure that even he could see it had cost more money than he'd ever seen in one wallet. With an effort he moved his attention to the speaker's face. Which was very beautiful in a perfectly made-up fashion, large lustrous dark eyes, and a full red mouth, slightly parted to reveal even teeth of perfect whiteness. She had a sheet of glossy dark brown hair and looked very like the women he'd fantasized about in old movies. The ones who were elegant yet sensual; who wore designer dresses that cost more than he earned in a year over unfeasibly tiny amounts of underwear, and against all logic and reason wanted to have wet wild sex with him without explanation or conversation. She was in her mid-thirties which was always the age of women he'd found most attractive even when he'd been a teenager having fantasies about his teachers. Experience had taught him that his interest had been well-founded. They were not only better in bed they were just a tiny bit grateful too.

He said something that he had a horrible suspicion sounded like 'D'uh wha…?'

She moved closer to him, a kind of disarming intimacy in the action, holding out a beautifully-shaped hand. Daniel had beautiful hands too but he'd never had a manicure and he really wouldn't have suited those long pearly-colored fingernails. "Maria Beaumont."

Sara was there before he knew it, saying encouragingly, "Maria's a lawyer." They knew each other so well he could actually see her adding silently: 'She has lots of money'.

Maria touched him gently on the chest. "Don't believe everything you hear about lawyers. You really don't need a crucifix or a string of garlic."

He smiled automatically at her joke while her perfume wrapped itself around him in enticing musky coils. When he looked past her shoulder to the terrace he couldn't see Daniel or Polly. He remembered how Daniel looked when the moonlight was on his skin; how long his eyelashes seemed; how easily he gave in when women put moves on him. Sha're. Melosha. Hathor. Shyla. Ke'ra. The word 'no' did not appear to exist in that boy's vocabulary. Perhaps he'd been told it was rude to turn down sex if it was offered to him or something.

"What do you do, Jack?"

"Jack's in the Air Force."

Sara had often answered for him at parties in the past. It had driven him nuts. Now he missed it, the way he missed everything about being married. He missed the way she burnt pancakes and filled the kitchen with blue grease-scented smoke every time she cooked them. He missed the way she wouldn't let him kiss her in the mornings until she'd brushed her teeth. He missed the way she wore shapeless cardigans just because her aunt had knitted them for her and she didn't want to hurt her feelings.

He looked at her fondly and then looked back at Maria, feeling a terrible sense of weariness as he did so.

She was looking expectant and definitely interested. "Am I talking to a bona fide American hero then? I warn you I'm always ready and willing to be impressed by good-looking men."

Oh god, he couldn't do this. He was too old and too tired to start all over again; to have to learn everything from scratch. There was a time when he'd loved that new discovery about a new partner; finding the things you had in common, the unexpected dislikes; the ones who wanted to put cucumber in the Christmas stuffing or would have to leave the room if there was beetroot in view because of something nasty that had happened to them in a school lunch hall one day. The polished career women who kicked off their shoes and pulled on an old college sweater the second they got through the door. The History major who loved baseball and knew more about it than he did. But he didn't feel able to go through that again. He had spent five years becoming so intimately acquainted with Teal'c, Carter and Daniel he could have gone on Mister and Missus and got full marks on being married to any of them. Well, supposing the show hadn't been cancelled twenty years before he could anyway. But he knew Teal'c had a weakness for trash television, seedy nightclubs, and Star Wars; that Carter's first love would always be Harley Davidson and that she had a recurring dream about walking on the surface of the moon in grainy black and white while 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' played somewhere on a creaky gramophone. He knew about Daniel's sweet tooth and schoolboy giggle, that he'd smoked pot in Morocco that had made him hallucinate he was in two places at once. That he was still wounded because his grandfather hadn't taken him in; still had nightmares about his parents dying; that he talked in his sleep and ground his teeth; that he had a lot of guilt he was still in the process of dealing with because he loved his job and loved the Stargate even though both of them had contributed to his wife's death.

O'Neill found a smile from somewhere. "I'm sorry. I'm not very good company tonight."

Sara looked stricken then and Maria even more interested, because he wasn't just a handsome-ish, single, slightly drunken older man she might want to fuck, but someone a little tragic, a little damaged as well. Someone she could console; whose life she could improve. Women always wanted to make a difference. So did Daniel. He supposed, in his own way, so did he. Otherwise he'd have taken a job stacking shelves in Walmart near the nearest good fishing river or would be milking cows on his oldest sister's husband's dairy farm.

He darted another glance at the terrace; the moonlight; the starlight; the scent of the roses would all be out there doing their work. And he knew how the ache in Daniel's heart would be feeling because he was feeling it now looking at Sara. She'd been his once, and now she wasn't; been the person to whom he mattered most; the one who was always on his side; and now he was just someone else she knew. Oh, she still loved him, he saw that in her eyes, but there were others she loved more, and that was tough. He didn't come first with her. He didn't really come first with anyone any more. Carter had Jacob, not to mention Janet and Cassandra who were both closer to her than he was. Teal'c had a son. Daniel had…

It occurred to him that actually what Daniel had was…him. If there was anyone in the world to whom Jack O'Neill mattered the most then it was to Daniel Jackson. And he had let that person walk off into the moonlight with a pretty girl without ever suggesting to him that perhaps it was Jack O'Neill he should be taking moonlit walks with.

"Jack…?"

Sara's hand on his arm made him realized that he'd been drifting off and probably being very rude too.

He put a hand to his head. "I'm sorry I'm…drunk." He gave Maria an apologetic grimace.

The smile she gave him was unexpectedly dazzling. She held up her glass. "Me too."

"Sara…?" The plaintive wail from Gordon could only have come from a married man. It was the 'help me, I'm mid-crisis' wail O'Neill had so often employed himself.

"Oh dear, that sounds serious," Maria smiled at her. "You'd better rescue him."

"I think I better had." Sara squeezed his arm gently. "Goodnight, Jack."

"Night, sweetheart." He kissed her on the cheek, inhaling her perfume for what felt painfully like the last time. When he watched her go he did feel something squeezing his heart; the same feeling he was getting when he thought about Daniel with Polly. The urge to go after him was very strong, but if he found him what could he possibly say? "I've decided we're a couple so come to bed"?

"You look like a man with a lot on his mind."

He gave a guilty start as he realized Maria was still standing there looking at him. "I'm sorry. Yes. I am."

With her free hand she fiddled with the ends of her hair, a nervous gesture that made her briefly vulnerable behind her perfectly applied make-up. "Do you want to talk about it? Unlike you I got a very nice guest room."

He thought about Daniel and Polly again and realized there was no way to pursue that avenue without looking stupid and risking screwing up the most important relationship in his life. He couldn't claw back the righteous indignation that might have carried him through that planned confrontation on the terrace. He just felt defeated by yet another situation he couldn't change. It might seem to him that standing here doing nothing while Daniel had sex with a girl was like shrugging in resignation while his wife went off with another man but that was his lot in life now. He loved Daniel; he felt committed to their relationship in a way he'd sensed but never fully confronted until now; but if Daniel didn't feel what he felt he could risk losing everything. And if he stood here and did nothing and during the course of one night Polly went from being a nobody in their lives to the person who had supplanted him in Daniel's affections just because of her gender, well, that was just the way things happened sometimes.

He looked at Maria. "Do you have whiskey?"

"Whiskey. Glasses. A broken heart and a sympathetic ear." She downed her wine in a couple of gulps that suggested she wasn't lying about the broken heart. Another wounded soul in search of company. Perhaps that was why she'd sought him out.

He decided to put thoughts of Daniel out of his mind and make the effort to start over; the way Sara had done; the way Daniel was doing right now in that rose garden with the moonlight caressing his skin. He smiled at Maria. "You could be the woman of my dreams."

***

He liked this woman, he really did. She was funny and intelligent and drunk enough to make her interest in him flatteringly apparent without actually hitting on him in a way too crass or embarrassing to avoid. And she was beautiful and sexy and he really wanted to see her naked. But…

Maria sighed and put the whiskey bottle back on the table. "Well, I've told you all about my louse of an ex-boyfriend, and the guy I let get away who married someone else, and the guy in my office I can't stand. And you've laughed politely at even my lamest jokes, " She gave him a unnervingly penetrating look. "But there's someone else, isn't there?"

O'Neill held up his hands. "It's my ex-wife's wedding day…"

"I know. But I don't think it's Sara who came back to this room with us. I just know someone else did." She gave him a brittle smile. "That's not a criticism, by the way. I have no possible right to dictate to you. I just feel that in fairness to myself I should say that I'm feeling pretty emotionally vulnerable right now and if you're already spoken for I don't want to let myself get attached." She looked him in the eye. "Because I'm drunk enough to admit that I definitely think I could get attached."

His conscience hit him hard because underneath the beautiful make-up and the incredible figure, not to mention the clinging cut of that designer dress, she was just another human being with hopes and fears and feelings. Not an enemy to be conquered, evaded, or tricked.

"There's someone else."

She nodded and took another sip of whiskey. "Well, that gives me a hundred percent score of being attracted to the wrong guy every time but I do get the fleeting satisfaction of knowing I was right."

"I'm sorry. I didn't even realize myself until…" He got to his feet. "I should go."

She reached up and touched his arm. "You can stay if you want to. It'll just be something else."

"Something else?" He was trying not to look at her breasts but now he was standing up he could see down the front of her dress. He was also feeling angry with himself and with Daniel because here was this dream women sitting literally at his feet, so beautiful and smart and funny and probably red hot in bed and he'd had to decide tonight that what he really wanted was Daniel. Couldn't he have slept with Maria tonight and then realized it was Daniel he wanted tomorrow?

"Meaningless sex for mutual comfort instead of the beginning of a relationship." She looked up at him, letting him see that as well as disappointment there was desire in her eyes as well.

His groin gave an automatic spasm and then he stepped back. "You deserve better than I have to offer, Maria."

"You're a nice man, Jack." She looked at him with regret. "And she's a lucky woman, whoever she is."

He backed up. "No hard feelings?"

She shook her head, her glossy dark hair looking copper in the lamplight. "I'll even wish you luck. Not all lawyers are bad losers."

"Take care." It was inadequate but he didn’t know what else to say. He'd just turned her down on about three different levels and she'd been incredibly nice about it. He backed up towards the door. "Sweet dreams."

"You too." She looked so wistful and so beautiful he wondered if he really was completely out of his mind. And then he found the door handle and was blundering into the long carpeted corridor of Sarah's new husband's second floor realizing that he was now even drunker than he'd been an hour previously and Daniel had probably finished having sex with Polly.

That thought hurt a lot but Daniel had been to bed with women before and they'd got over it. Actually, being honest, not without rows and usually some considerable bitchery on his part. Christ, just how many tip-offs had they been ignoring the past few years? He had an uncomfortable recollection of himself doing a fishwife impression in the mines going 'Oh it's 'Shyla' now, is it?' Daniel in will-you-still-love-me-however-bad-I-am-Daddy spoilt-brat-from-hell mode kissing the hormonal princess right in front of him. Him and Daniel fighting over Ke'ra. God, he'd called her a 'peach' while damned near flouncing. Daniel had stuck his nose in the air and stomped off on his dignity. Then there was the way they both pitched hissy fits if the other one disappointed them. Sheesh, could they be any more of a couple if they tried? How the heck hadn’t they noticed? How the heck hadn't everyone else noticed? Maybe they had. Maybe everyone in Cheyenne Mountain knew he and Daniel were a couple and they were just being tactful about not mentioning it. Come to think of it no one ever tried to fix them up on blind dates the way they did with Carter. Perhaps they thought they were already spoken for? So why hadn't anyone told them? Why had they just let them blunder along in blissful ignorance being the only people who didn't know they were a couple? How mean was that?

He realized he had no idea where Polly's bedroom was. He was looking for it by peering at the doors as he passed them as if this should somehow tip him off. He was going to have to ask people. Not content with getting drunk and being pitied for being the guy Sara had dumped to marry Gordon, he was now going to have to further humiliate himself by weaving unsteadily down carpeted corridors asking where his best friend was sleeping that night. When all he'd needed to do was stay with Maria and have wild wet sex and he could have been the envy of the breakfast table the following morning.

One thing about having your ex-wife marry another man, people were very tolerant when you got stinking drunk and wandered about the passageways of the house asking for another woman's bedroom. He'd been directed to Polly's by someone who had been not only sympathetic to his plight as Sara's discarded ex but who quite erroneously presumed he and Polly had an assignation. By the time he reached Polly's room his heart was thumping so hard he thought he might be heading for cardiac arrest.

He also hadn't realized just how drunk he was until he found himself tapping on Polly's door with no real plan in mind except the firm conviction that her bed was a place he didn't want Daniel to be and he was prepared to use any method however foul or potentially humiliating when he sobered up to get him out of it. By the time he'd tapped tentatively three times he was even considering bursting in there as a jealous boyfriend and making like Daniel was cheating on him; which had the slight drawback of consigning their friendship to the incinerator but would accomplish his short term aim of getting Polly to kick Daniel out of her bed.

The door opened and Polly blinked at him in confusion. She was wearing a long t-shirt that came down past her knees, her hair was mussed and she smelt of toothpaste. She looked more melancholy than like someone who had been interrupted in the midst of sex and there was no flush of recent exertion on her cheeks. She leant forward, squinting. "It's…Jack, isn't it?"

O'Neill felt a little silly. He'd been working up quite a head of steam of antagonism towards her, but gazing at her now she looked like a sweet girl, and one who had clearly taken her contacts out before going to bed and so was having trouble distinguishing his features. He also realized that he'd got her out of bed and was several years older than her not to mention almost a foot taller, making his tactics seem more like bullying than anything else. He could feel himself sobering up just looking at her.

"Sorry to disturb you, Polly. I was just wondering if Daniel was with you?"

She looked even more melancholy. "He had a headache. I think he's gone to bed."

Of course, the one place he hadn't checked was the garage where he and Daniel were supposed to be sleeping. It hadn't occurred to him that Daniel might have made an excuse and left. Coupled with the wave of relief was a stab of pity for her. She looked genuinely sorry which wasn't surprising as Daniel was genuinely a nice guy and genuinely a very handsome one. He felt ashamed of his behavior. He'd had one shot at happiness and blown it, after all. This girl might not have had any as yet. "Oh, sorry to bother you." He gave her an apologetic grimace and backed up.

She said with soft regret: "Tell him good night from me."

"I’ll do that."

He waited until she closed the door and then reeled down the corridor, heart practically bursting with relief. He'd been reprieved and the Polly situation had been averted for now, but unless he did something to prevent it there would be other Pollys at the next party or the next. So he needed to make some kind of declaration or kiss Daniel or something while he was still drunk enough to have the courage to do it, but not so incapacitated or hung over that he wasn't making any sense.

As he moved a little unsteadily down the corridor he was rehearsing speeches in his head. "Daniel, I've come to believe that I may…that is I'm definitely starting to think that we…or rather I think it's worth considering the possibility that you and I could be…"

"Jack…?"

The quiet exclamation from Daniel made him lurch around in surprise. And there he was; heading along the corridor towards him in a none too steady path, looking drunk and disheveled and – there was no other word for it – utterly doable. He'd forgotten how cute Daniel was when he was drunk; the way his hair would get mussed and unruly – even now it was short it was drunkenly rebelling in erratic tufts; the way he had to work so hard on focusing; the way he smelt when he'd been drinking; perfumed with alcohol; wrapped in the scent of inebriation; drowsy and dopey and sometimes pliable, confiding, and sweet.

He was staring at O'Neill in confused pleasure and embarrassment. He gestured back along the corridor. "I thought you were…" He turned back to him. "But you weren't." That was the direction of the garden, the kitchen, and Maria's bedroom. Which one did he mean?

O'Neill moistened his lips, heart thumping again. "I went to Polly's room. You weren't there."

Daniel also licked his lips, unconsciously echoing O'Neill, a moist pink tongue flickering across his mouth. "I went to Maria's room. You weren't there."

"No." This was his opportunity to explain exactly why he hadn't been there but he couldn’t do it. He was looking at Daniel and his heart was aching not just with wanting and needing and more than a hint of lust; but with memories of all they'd been to each other over the years; how much they needed one another. Was he really intending to screw that up just for sex?

Daniel swallowed. "Why weren't you there? I asked Sara. She said Maria was single and looking and definitely liked the look of you."

"What else did she say?"

Daniel ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up some more. "She asked me lots of questions. She told me lots of nice things about you. She said you were a good man. I said I knew. She said she hoped I did. She asked why you weren't dating. She asked why I wasn't dating. She said you needed to be with someone. It wasn't good for you to be alone. We talked about you a lot."

"When?"

"After I said goodnight to Polly."

So the hour he'd imagined Daniel spending writhing in between the sheets with Polly he'd actually spent sitting in the kitchen with Sara talking about him.

O'Neill looked at Daniel, trying to read him and Daniel flushed again, embarrassed but defiant. "We talked about the importance of seizing the moment. So I…I went and knocked on Maria's door."

O'Neill blinked in surprise at the realization his ex-wife had been matchmaking on his behalf; and matchmaking him with a guy too. She'd vetted Daniel and evidently given him her seal of approval, then liquored and psyched him up to the point where he would go and knock on the door of a strange woman's bedroom and ask if his unpredictable and often cranky friend was in there. He felt his heart beat a little faster and took a step forward. "Why?"

Daniel also took a step forward. "What do you mean?"

"Why did you go to see Maria?"

"I didn't. I went to see you."

"Why?"

"So we could talk."

"About?"

Daniel looked around for inspiration and evidently finding none said desperately, "Well, why did you go and see Polly anyway?"

"To find you."

"Why?"

"Because I had some things I needed to say to you."

"Such as…?"

O'Neill looked into those so familiar blue eyes and read the love in them; and the uncertainty; and the fear of screwing up. He decided it was now or never and if he was wrong about this then he was wrong about everything, his life was as unstable as a house of cards, and he was going to have to rebuild it moment by moment. He made his decision and stepped forward, resting his hands on Daniel's shoulders. "This."

Then he kissed him.

His mouth was sweet and soft and felt like velvet against his lips. The way Daniel immediately closed his eyes and opened his mouth filled him with relief, not to mention an extra hardening of his groin. He kissed him again, tenderly, and it felt so natural it was positively frightening. All this time his body had clearly been yearning for Daniel and Daniel's body had been yearning right back. And everyone had known about it except them.

He didn't know how long they stood there in the corridor, kissing tentatively and hungrily and sweetly and shyly; he was aware of the moonlight from a window somewhere bathing Daniel in silvery blue light; aware of his warmth; and aware of his taste; whiskey-flavored and intoxicating; just like the scent of him; his warm hard flesh; body moving instinctively towards O'Neill's in the same way his eyes had instinctively closed, his mouth instinctively opened as O'Neill leant in to claim that first perfect kiss.

When he reluctantly lifted his mouth from Daniel's, Daniel's eyes opened slowly, making him look drowsy and a little bit drugged. They looked at one another; realization sweeping through them both at the same time that they'd just crossed a line; had just kissed the way lovers kissed and had never felt anything so natural or so right.

O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "I guess this had been brewing for a while."

"Yes." Daniel was still gazing at him intently, as if he was the most fascinating thing in the world and might vanish if he blinked.

"I suppose we should try to get some sleep. Talk about stuff in the morning."

Daniel was still looking at him. "Yes."

"And I guess we're not just good friends any more."

Daniel blinked. His expression became more thoughtful. "There was never anything 'just' good about our friendship, Jack. And that isn't going to change."

O'Neill moistened his lips, remembering Daniel's heart aching for him in that moment when Sara had come out from the ceremony; all the times they'd been there for one another; helping; supporting; loving. They'd been the best of friends, damnit. The kind of friendship married couples could only envy; the kind of marriage most friends never even glimpsed. They had the best of both worlds and what they had was too special and too incredible for any of them to want to risk screwing it up. That was why it had taken them so long to come to this point and this moment in the moonlight, with the scent of the roses blowing in through an open window somewhere; the distant clink of glassware; tinkle of laughter; sigh of loneliness. They'd done all their yelling and fighting for years before they reached the honeymoon but they were still going to their wedding night virgin to each other; with new things to discover about someone who, until today, they thought they knew as well as themselves. O'Neill swallowed hard as he realized that was what he was doing. The same thing Sara was. He'd found someone else who he loved and who loved him and he was going to consummate it, if not before man and god and a minister, at least before Daniel, who was the world to him; the one he mattered most to; the one who mattered most to him. He was no longer single. Like Sara, he was half of a couple and had been for some time.

"Jack…?" A moment before Daniel had looked so sure but now he was tentative. "Is there something wrong?"

O'Neill focused on him; those features that were so familiar and yet that mouth he'd only just tasted. "No, Daniel, everything is scarily right. Especially you. Our friendship isn't going to change. It's just going to improve."

"That would be difficult." Daniel regarded him with great intensity. "It's one of the most important things in my life, and one of the things I'm most grateful for. On all the occasions when I'm not actually looking around for something heavy to throw at your head."

O'Neill laughed, relieved at the welcome influx of frivolity. "Back at'cha, Dannyboy." He leant forward and brushed his lips across Daniel's, just because he could. Daniel looked a little unsure; faintly embarrassed; but did respond albeit a little tentatively. O'Neill got the distinct impression Daniel's biggest fear was looking silly in public or somehow failing to come up to standard. "And by the way, if no one's ever told you – you're a great kisser."

Daniel kissed him back with more confidence; a very sweet pressure against O'Neill's lips, then gave him an under the eyelashes come hither look that sent an incredible spasm through O'Neill's groin. "You too." Daniel scratched his jaw. "This is a little…embarrassing."

"Yes."

"Not noticing."

"I know." He drank in how beautiful Daniel was and how he wasn't with Polly, he was with him. "But at least we caught on in the end."

Daniel looked down at the garage and gulped. He looked scared and excited all at once, which was fittingly enough exactly how O'Neill was feeling too. Daniel's mouth had been the first shore of a brand new country he was eager to explore yet worried about spoiling in some way. Their relationship was so perfect the way it was and this was such unknown territory; and yet if they could make the transition from friends to lovers as smoothly as they had managed that first kiss…

Daniel gave him a rueful look. "I guess this is a whole new adventure."

O'Neill smiled, heart swelling with happiness. He had a suspicion that walking on the surface of other worlds could pale into insignificance besides this new expedition. He thought about Daniel's body, naked, willing, next to his in bed, the way lovers slept after sex, sweaty and sated and wrapped in one another's arms.  He leant across and kissed him again, just for luck, and as the beginning to what he hoped was going to be some very sweet foreplay. "Well, we are peaceful explorers after all…"

The End