2) The package said “macaroni and cheese.” Daniel inspected the fine writing – wait, there was no fine writing. It simply said “MRE – Meal Ready to Eat, Macaroni & Cheese.” Desultorily, he stirred the goo in the packet and tried a mouthful. Erk. Glue. Something sticky. He had a sudden desire to see if he could paste pictures into a photo album with the substance. But he caught Colonel O’Neill looking at him out of the corner of his eye and he dug in. He’d be damned if he couldn’t stomach the same glop the Ultimate Colonel was forking down with obvious relish.

3) Staff blasts, huddling behind a broken wall, blood splatters. Splatters everywhere, like a macabre Jackson Pollock. Slicing chips of masonry breaking his skin, driving grooves into his cheeks, his neck. His Beretta was empty, he was out of clips, and Jack was leaning against him, panting heavily, eyes rolling back in his head. Daniel put a hand to Jack’s cheek, shaking him slightly, feeling the blood spray from Jack’s head wound, hitting Daniel’s face like a hot rain. Instinct made him lick his lips, and he tasted copper and pain and despair. He pulled Jack’s face into his shoulder to shield him from the ballistic masonry and waited for Teal’c and Sam to do their thing.

4) Sweet. Drifting. He wanted to take his glasses off and rub at them, wondering if the rosy color of the world was in his lenses or … in the world around him. The beautiful redhead drew closer to him, sliding her hand up her arm, the rosy hue of the world deepening to a sparkling mauve, and all Daniel could think was that her lips looked like roses, her headdress glittering and seductive. She leaned close to him, breathing out that cotton candy air, making him hard, making him lean into her kiss, feeling his brain fuzz away into something like a Tequila Sunrise, sugary, intoxicating, debilitating.

This could not be tolerated, Jack decided from his vantage at the top of the darkened stairs, not when they had an actual weekend to enjoy, like normal people with normal jobs. Not when neither an air conditioner nor a heater was required to keep the house at a temperate range, not when mourning doves were beginning their pre-dawn cooing beyond his deck in the backyard, not when they’d just gotten back from being off-world for ten days and they hadn’t had a chance to touch each other all that time. The three orgasms they’d just crammed into early Friday night was only the beginning of what should be a sex-drenched weekend, in Jack’s opinion.

What should be happening right at this moment was one of two things: 1) they should be sleeping, or 2) they should be making love, preferably the latter. Most emphatically the latter. There was no third choice, certainly not one that involved a laptop and research.

But how, oh, how, was he going to pry his recalcitrant lover from the siren call of his moldy old mummies and dead languages?

Jack was a tactician, a strategist, and he’d recently been doing some covert research of his own for just this occurrence.

Silently, he slipped into the kitchen and set about making that special cup of coffee that Daniel liked so much, the coffee with the nutmeg and just a hint of cinnamon, and a splash of brandy to warm the cockles of the heart. He wasn’t worried about Daniel hearing him, Daniel wouldn’t hear the Army Marching Band if it crashed the living room wall when he was this deep in his reading.

Before he took up the coffee cup, Jack mussed up his hair, just the way Daniel liked it, made sure his breath smelled sweet (and people wondered why he kept toothpaste in the kitchen), made sure his boxers were riding low on his hips, and sauntered down into the living room, mug in hand.

Quietly, he sat next to Daniel’s laptop on the coffee table, reached over, and exchanged the old cup with the new. From his vantage on the floor, face lit by the spectral blue glow of the laptop screen, Daniel didn’t even look up, merely stretched out his hand and lifted the mug to his lips.

One … two … three … after three seconds, reality intruded and the blue eyes went wide behind the glasses, appreciation flooding Daniel’s face. “The O’Neill Kicker,” he murmured, and looked up at Jack, a tiny smile on his lips. “What’s the occasion?” he asked.

Jack shrugged. “Ti voglio bene,” he said simply, and kept his smugness to himself when Daniel’s mouth dropped open and his face was overcome with a look of sheer joy and surprise. Jack didn’t say the words often, but when he did, the sneaky special ops in him liked to spring it on Daniel when Jack was most apt to get the biggest response.

“I – I love you, too,” Daniel murmured in return, and sipped his coffee again to show how much.

Jack stretched out a foot and began to gently rub Daniel’s naked knee with his toes. “Je t’aime,” Jack said softly, and the mug went down to the coffee table with a thump.

“Jack?” Daniel asked, surprise and pleasure warring with concern. “Are you all right?”

Jack just grinned and cupped Daniel’s cheek in his hand, his thumb stroking over the swell of Daniel’s bottom lip. “Te amo,” Jack murmured before leaning in and kissing that plump lip. Daniel heaved a huge sigh, one replete with comfort and anticipation, and tilted his head just so to equally engage Jack in the kiss, his hands drifting up to lightly grasp Jack’s forearms.

Then Jack stood and pulled Daniel up with him. “Taim i’ ngra leat,” Jack whispered into the curve of Daniel’s neck, his Irish, for once, sounding nothing like fake. Daniel twitched, his breath catching, and moved into Jack’s hug, his lips seeking Jack’s, while Jack’s hands roamed down to the swell of Daniel’s ass, pulling their hips together, feeling the sudden urgent push of Daniel’s hard length against his own. “Aishiteru,” he said clearly to the dip of Daniel’s clavicle bones, and Daniel’s hands were in his hair, fingering the silvery strands, Daniel’s bare chest warm and heaving beneath him.

“Jack?” Daniel queried again, his voice a mere whisper. His eyes were huge, blue and sparkling and depthless with emotion as Jack removed his glasses and placed them carefully on the coffee table.

“Naku penda, Daniel,” Jack said, taking Daniel’s hand in his and beginning to lead him up the stairs towards the bedroom.

Daniel stumbled. “Swahili??” he gasped, tugging on Jack’s hand and making him stop. “What the hell … ?”

“Ich liebe dich,” Jack grinned, and pulled Daniel again towards the bedroom.

“You just went online and memorized all these,” Daniel accused, but his voice was soft and he was close on Jack’s heels. The laptop, research and notes had been unblushingly forgotten in the onslaught of Jack’s linguistic endeavors.

Jack shrugged again as he backed Daniel towards the bed, sliding off his own boxers. “Tora dost daram,” he tossed off and pulled Daniel down to the soft cotton sheets, urging his lover into the pool of moonlight that filtered through the window shades. With his teeth, he pulled the dark blue silk boxers off Daniel’s hips, just as he’d promised himself, mumbling, “Ik hou van jou, Daniel.” Then he let his lips talk with kisses, tasting every pore between Daniel’s neck and hipbone, his hands restless, stroking, tangling with Daniel’s hands, fingers knotting, twisting, legs shifting restlessly. “Philo se, Daniel, philo se,” Jack whispered brokenly to Daniel’s inner thigh, and Daniel’s whole body thrummed to the rhythm of Jack’s tongue on his skin.

“Jack, Jack,” Daniel groaned, his hands urging Jack up to him, kissing Jack fiercely, his own hands clutching and stroking, feeling skin that was weathered, skin that was soft as a rose-petal, felt the lines around the eyes, and the heat in the cheeks.

Jack raised himself up so he could meet Daniel’s gaze, the moonlight a caress on both their faces. “Ana bahebek,” he said roughly, his heart in his eyes, and Daniel was perfectly still under Jack’s hands.

“Ana bahebek,” Daniel whispered back, and a tear slid down his cheek into the hair by his temple. “Ana bahebek, ana bahebek,” he said, over and over as Jack slid between his thighs, hands curved under his shoulders.

The first couple of nights home, he would sit up in bed, in a sweat, and would poke at his mattress, reminding himself that he was home, with running water and varnished hard-wood floors, and not sleeping on rough-hewn planks with a thick homespun blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders. He would sit, cuddled over a pillow clutched to his stomach, and practice the breathing Teal’c had taught him. In, slowly, hold it, then out, slowly, feeling the air tickle his lungs, rush coolly in through his throat, and then out in a hot exhalation of the fears and panic that threatened to choke him.

Tonight was no different. It had been a week since he’d come home – home, oh, the word had never seemed so sweet, like a ripe berry on the tongue, pungent with tartness and sugar and renewed flavor. He was home, where he understood the stars, and the sidewalks, and washing machines and McDonald’s Big Mac. Where he understood people.

He hated this. He hated being awake at two in the morning, especially if he’d been asleep only moments ago. The darkness seemed lonelier to him if he was coming to it from a deep slumber. If he was there, awake, from the beginning of the night, it was different, he welcomed the tiny hours and their silent company. But now, when lights were out, when even the trees slept outside his window, he felt desolate.

So what did he do?

He sought comfort. It was never really a conscious decision on his part as to where he would go. He would simply kick off his damp sheets, stand, put on a dry t-shirt, even change his boxer shorts, as they invariably clung to his hips like a wet paper towel, put on jeans and his boots. Then he would shrug into his leather jacket, scoop up his keys, and get in his truck, letting muscle memory take him where he needed to go.

The phrase “held captive” has as many facets to it as the Hope Diamond. To some, it is the stunning intensity of a lover’s eyes, and the inability to tear the gaze away for a lifetime of exchanged emotions. To others, it is the tangible restraint of ropes and guns and knives and the bitter fear that every second might be the last. To him, for him, there had been no ropes, no knives, only the certain fear, the gut-wrenching, searing terror that every second would cascade into a minute, a minute into an hour, an hour into a lifetime under a sun and in a woman’s arms, arms that wound about him tighter than any ropes.

So he couldn’t talk to Carter, not for the first couple of days. He knew it hurt her, and her certainly didn’t mean to hurt her, but he’d had enough of women for the moment. Sad commentary. He loved women. Loved their company, loved their sex, loved their minds. He might not always understand them, but he loved them.

So what did he do?

He sought the comfort where he knew best to find it, where he never had to second-guess himself, where he could make his cynical comments and be assured that they fell into a quiet well of understanding that threw back no ripples of confusion.

Tonight was no different. Most likely Daniel had been expecting him, for the apartment door was ajar, and the light was on in the living room. Jack pushed open the door and stepped inside, halloo-ing softly.

“Kitchen,” Daniel called.

“Ah,” Jack said, coming into the room and leaning against the wooden island. “Coffee?”

“Was there any doubt?” Daniel asked, handing Jack a mug.

Jack didn’t answer for a moment, intent on picking out a tiny fleck of grounds from the side of his mug.

“Same dream?” Daniel asked, resting his own hip against the island and sucking greedily at his coffee. His glasses fogged slightly in the steam rising from the cup.

“Yeah,” Jack grunted, and took his mug out into the living room to stand in front of the sliding glass doors. Daniel followed him out and peered through the glass with him, seeing cityscape and a smattering of lights like tiny jewels. Jack didn’t move for a long minute, then said, “Think I should see a shrink about this?”

Daniel considered this. “Well,” he said slowly, “do you think you should?”

Jack rolled his eyes and turned his back on the dark city line. “That’s a non-answer answer if I’ve ever heard one,” he complained.

Daniel’s mouth tightened and he moved into the living room. “Jack, look, you haven’t even told me what you’re dreaming about. So, sure, see a shrink, maybe they’ll give you some good drugs to help you sleep. Or a lollipop. Who knows.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose as he followed Daniel to the couch. “Testy, are we?”

Daniel merely grunted and propped his feet up on the wooden coffee table. “Maybe,” he said. Then he rubbed the bridge of his nose under his glasses and sighed. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “It’s these translations I’ve been working on. Whoever wrote these texts must have been a moron afflicted with a rather bad case of palsy. I need a decoder ring,” he moaned.

“You are a decoder ring,” Jack said smugly.

“Ha, ha,” Daniel said, finishing his coffee and rising to his feet in the same motion. For a brief and fleeting moment, Jack was distracted by the shape of Daniel’s hips through his worn blue sweatpants. “Want more?”

Jack gave him one of his patented “are you nuts?” looks. “I still don’t understand how you can sleep with all the coffee you drink,” he commented, listening to Daniel’s bare feet pad across the hardwood floors. “You know, I just figured out what to get you for Christmas. One of those hats with the beer cans and the straws, but instead of beer, you can put coffee in the holders and suck caffeine all day.”

The idea was so amusing, yet at the same time, so outrageous, that Daniel didn’t know whether to laugh or flip Jack a sharp comeback. He compromised and found himself halfway between a choke and a cough, and pounded on his own chest to clear his airways. “Jack, I really hate you sometimes,” he said, coming back to the living room and leaning on the back of the couch. Jack’s head was close by his elbow, but he didn’t turn to look at Daniel when he replied, “It’s just part of my charm.”

“Oh, so that’s what you call it,” Daniel retorted, and smiled. Jack did look at him this time, just for a second, and understanding flowed between them like a warm current. Then Jack turned back to his intent inspection of his own feet propped up on Daniel’s coffee table.

They stayed that way for another long minute, the silence stretching, Jack engrossed with the stitching on his boots, then the slow slide of the numbers in the cable box’s clock, 3:15 tumbling over into 3:16, Daniel staring down into his coffee cup, sometimes glancing at Jack with a sideways look.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Jack finally said, and grabbed Daniel’s forearm, pulling him around the couch. “Sit down, would you? I hate it when you hover.”

Daniel shook from his hand the coffee that had been spilled when Jack hauled him to the front of the couch. Very deliberately, he wiped the back of his hand on the leg of Jack’s jeans, then settled back into the cushions.

Jack sighed heavily. “Her name was Laira,” he said. Daniel knew this part, of course, but held his tongue. This sounded like it might be something memorized, or at least well-worn, and he didn’t want to interrupt Jack’s train of thought, wanted his friend to get through this one without being derailed.

“Her name was Laira,” Jack said again. Daniel, very slowly and gently, put down his coffee cup and turned to give Jack his full attention. His knee touched Jack’s thigh, but neither of them noticed. “She was pretty, in her own way. Very caring. Very loving.” Jack sighed again. “But she … she … ” Jack shook his head and stood, tucking his hands into his front jeans pockets. He looked down at Daniel, momentarily perplexed by the crystalline blue of the archaeologist’s eyes, then shook his head again. “You know what?” he said suddenly. “Never mind.” And he started for the door.

Daniel was a lot faster than even he expected, leaping to his feet and practically throwing himself on the door before Jack could grasp the doorknob. “Oh, no,” he said, putting a hand on Jack’s chest. “You actually said her name. You’re not stopping now.”

Jack glared at him. “Daniel, get out of the way.”

“Jack, you know I’m right. Get back over there and finish this. Maybe then you won’t need a shrink,” he added, sort of hoping it would work as a bribe.

Irritation battled with the desperate need to unburden himself. The need won out, and Jack allowed himself to be led back to the couch. “Turn off the lights,” he said quietly, and Daniel did so at once.

Now all they could see from their seats on the couch was the shimmer of light reflected from the world outside: pallid moonlight, neon glow, the normal, soft shadows of a night that did not want to relinquish itself to the morning, pale reflections glimmering on the dark TV screen, bouncing richly off the polished wood of the coffee table. The salt in Jack’s hair glinted like silver, and Daniel moved to brush a tiny lock back above the tanned forehead. “What did she do, Jack?” he asked softly.

Jack stared into the darkness. “I was so tired,” he said finally. “I was so tired. I went to dig for the Gate, I went to listen for the DHD, I went to hope … and she would come, and stand next to me while I threw rocks around, and she’d tell me that there was no point. She would ask, ‘Why won’t you look forward?’ And she would smile that smile of hers.” Jack shuddered. “Daniel – ” he gasped, and to Daniel’s horror, Jack buried his face in his hands. Thoughtlessly, Daniel put a hand on his friend’s back, rubbing the tight muscles between the shoulder blades. “I felt like she was eating me alive, Daniel,” Jack rasped. “And yet she was always smiling, smiling, so damned chipper, working and cleaning and cooking and talking at me, talking at me! I thought I would go insane. And, then one day …” Jack heaved a shuddering breath. “One day, I couldn’t fight her any more.” Daniel’s hand stilled on Jack’s shoulder. “One day, I actually listened to her. I actually looked at her. With her curly hair, and that big smile.” Another shudder shook Jack’s frame. “And I felt everything slipping away. Slipping away,” he whispered.

Daniel swallowed hard, his hand still on Jack’s shoulder, feeling the heat of his body through the thin cotton t-shirt. But he said nothing, waiting.

“It was almost like I stopped thinking,” Jack continued finally. “It hurt to think. It hurt to hope. So I gave her what she wanted.” He made an inarticulate sound of disgust and rage. “I gave her what she wanted, Daniel! It nearly made me sick, but I took her, and I laid her down, and I thought, if this is what I have to do to keep breathing, then I’ll do it.” Daniel’s hand tightened on Jack’s shoulder, then moved to the nape of his neck, massaging deeply, gently. “But even that, after a while … I didn’t know if I wanted to keep breathing. She was eating me alive. I was dead, Daniel! Do you understand that?” Jack turned to face him in the dark, their knees bumping, Daniel’s hand sliding from Jack’s neck to his left bicep, resting like a butterfly. “I was a dead man, walking around on that planet with that woman attached to me like one of those snake-heads!” Jack flung off Daniel’s hand and stood abruptly, moving back to the sliding doors, his palms pressed against the cool glass. His face was so close to the glass, his reflection was clouded by the fug from his breath.

Then Daniel came to stand behind him, and he placed his own hands on Jack’s shoulders. “But you were never dead to us,” he said softly. A certain tension seemed to ease out of Jack’s body. “What she did … “ Daniel had stop for a moment to gather his thoughts into a more coherent shape. Laira had seemed kind, to him, but what he was hearing was someone who deliberately killed a man’s hope. Yes, that’s exactly what she’d done. “I can’t find the words,” he said helplessly, and felt Jack laugh bitterly.

“You, without words,” Jack muttered, and Daniel felt an answering smile tug at his lips. Then he sobered again.

“She used you, Jack,” he said regretfully, turning Jack around. With Jack to the window, he was all silhouette to Daniel. For Jack, Daniel’s face was a portrait of white and shadow, the normally blue eyes washed to a misty violet by the moonlight.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Jack said, and put his hands on Daniel’s wrists, feeling the bones beneath as delicate as a wren’s. “She wanted a baby.”

Something lurched in Daniel’s stomach, whether at the thought of Jack being used in such a fashion, or at the thought of anyone being used in such a fashion, or both, he wasn’t sure, but he had to fight down a wave of nausea before he could speak. “And?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

Jack shook his head. “I don’t think … “ his voice trailed off.

Daniel blinked. There could have been a Jack Junior? “Yeah,” he said bluntly. “I think you should see a shrink.”

Jack did laugh, then, outright, the sound gusty and pained. “No,” he said, “maybe I don’t.” And he reached out and pulled Daniel to him. With his face on Daniel’s shoulder, his arms wrapped around the other man’s slender waist, he finally let it go. There were few times in his life when he’d actually cried, let alone cried in front of another person, but this was one time where he knew he was safe, that there would be no judgment, that he would not have to keep up the façade of the strong and gung-ho military man devoted to his uniform. Daniel held him tightly, rubbing Jack’s back with his strong hands, his cheek pressed to Jack’s, and felt tears dampening his shirt.

“I don’t want there to be a kid, Daniel,” Jack snuffled, not relinquishing his hold, scaring himself with his honesty as he voiced a fear he hadn’t even consciously acknowledged. “Not another Charlie, not some little alien baby on another planet, not – ”

“There won’t be,” Daniel said softly, stroking Jack’s hair.

“How the hell do you know?” Jack asked testily, pulling his face back to stare Daniel down in the moonlight.

“Jack.” Daniel’s voice was full of exasperation. “Would you please read the reports people give you?” Jack merely looked blank and Daniel sighed heavily. “I didn’t realize the significance of it when I read it, but it all makes sense now … “

“What, Daniel!”

“Laira’s people requested medical supplies, some of them for her, apparently. They only said it was a “woman’s matter,” stupid archaic term, but Fraiser went through to help, just to be sure, and she went with blood packs. Hell, I don’t know, Sam or Janet could give you all the real details, if you really want to hear them. But … I’d bet just about anything that it was a miscarriage.”

All the air went out of Jack’s lungs, and he lacked breath for so long, spots started to swim before his eyes. Then he remembered how to breathe, the air rushing in. He held it, then let it out slowly, releasing the specter that had been looming in his subconscious for days. “I’m a bastard for being glad,” he said softly, and started to turn away again.

“No,” Daniel said, pulling Jack back against him. “You’re human. And you’re really free, now.”

Finally, at long last, after a week of wondering, of worrying, of hating that he had let himself bend, that he had let himself give in, give up, give up on hope, Jack felt it all slip away, like a coat in the summer, felt the darkness fold in around him, soft again, a companion in the wee hours, with Daniel’s arms around him, Daniel’s chin on his shoulder, and the clock behind his friend blinking 3:40 with all the complacency of dumb technology. He felt he could truly breathe again, he could feel his body again, he was connected to his feet, and his hands, and his nose and his tongue, and without thinking, he pressed a kiss into the side of Daniel’s neck.

He was a living a goddamn Shakespearean comedy of errors, a tragedy of the most comical kind, and it pissed him off no end.

He was an easy-going guy. He was. Fairly low maintenance, his demands were few and easy to fulfill – beer, camaraderie, a good game on the TV. That’s all. Simple things that reminded him he was alive without having to get into navel-gazing that was ultimately fruitless anyway. It didn’t change anything.

But this, this had sucked at his heart just as the Ancient device had sucked at his brain. Usually, he could go about his business, and ignore the swelling of emotion that would lap about his feet like an incoming tide. Sometimes, an errant wave would push at him, and he’d stumble, but he’d right himself and carry on and no one would be the wiser, including himself. Then there were the times that he couldn’t do anything but feel that tide, and wish he could let go, let the water sweep him off his feet and carry him away from his safe, military shore, and be rocked in the warm, gentle pulse of that uncharted, emotional ocean.

Really, really pissed him off. He hated being a cliché.

But there it was. He was a cliché. He loved, he was in love, had been for so very long he hadn’t even noticed when it happened. And it was, as far as he knew, unrequited. More cliché on top of more cliché. It was enough to make him sick.

Damn Shakespeare anyway. There was no Romeo here, no Juliet, no fucking dream on a Midsummer’s night, no, no, and no, again. Yet the emotions remained the same, the tug of heart strings, the wonderings of What If, the poking at dreams where there was no Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but simply the blessed freedom to be and feel what he wanted to be and feel.

Damn Daniel, anyway. While that was unfair, while he knew that Daniel didn’t do anything deliberately, that Daniel just was, it was still easy to blame Daniel. See, that was part of the whole laughable tragedy. If it could have been reduced to some base desire to get sweaty and sticky, and then roll over and go to sleep, it would have been fine. He could have dealt with that. But, no. It was the base desire to get sweaty and sticky, and then roll over and hold Daniel in his arms, smooth his hand over that tender skin, press his lips to that beating throat-pulse, smell the almond shampoo of that shining hair. It was the need to talk about simple things, to share the floating thoughts that came after the body had been sated and put aside, to merge the meanderings of heart and soul.

More cliché. Maybe he would be sick, after all.

And why now? Why realize this all now, now, of all times, when he was schlepping two tired, tortured scientists through Latin American airports after yet another crazy, sleepless set of days battling the impossible? Why not when he’d almost become one with thousands of pounds of submersible Russian steel? Why not when Daniel had died in an oozing puddle of radiation poisoning and otherworldly light? Why not, why not, why not? It was insane, it was stupid, it was, in its own way, reassuring. For all that the dead could live again, the sheer mundanity of unrequited love could almost be comforting.

Almost.

When it wasn’t being irritatingly cliched.

Maybe it had been the reanimated dead that had tweaked his attention. That would have been enough to make Tarantino sit up and take notice. Maybe even pale a little. That strange, shaking horror that the bizarre and impossible was happening, right here on Earth, on good ol’ terra firma, instead of out there in space, in the cold, where there wasn’t the threat to the subconscious comfort of this being Home. It had happened, here, and he had almost been too late. Another half hour of sparring with Burke in that sordid little cantina and he would have been too late. And through it all, Daniel had kept fighting, had kept his head, kept his wits all wrapped up in a little box that said Protect Bill Lee from the Zombie Guerillas of Doom. Amazing. Because of Daniel, he hadn’t been too late.

Oh, Daniel was truly amazing. Even though he was so blithely ignorant of his own appeal, even though that ignorance drove Jack to anger and outright petulance, he was amazing. Astounding. Even with that stupid rock in his hand, he had tried to keep fighting. Even with his legs literally cut out from under him, he had turned, he had raised that rock, and he had fought. That was it – it was the rock. That idiotic rock, not even the size of a man’s head, a piece of earth hard enough to bruise, maybe break a bone, but in no way sufficient enough to stop a bullet, a machete or an alien device that could reanimate dead flesh. Jack even recognized, now, with the whir of plane engines in his ears and Daniel’s head lolling against his shoulder, that he had wanted to take that rock with him, a bizarre, too-weighty souvenir. God, like he’d been some sort of tourist at a Disney World for the Damned.

He was suddenly, intensely tired. Probably not as tired as the man who slept and drooled next to him, but tired enough, tired of the fact that he had wanted that drooling man for years and hadn’t even known it until now. He hated that he was suffering from an epiphany, because that, too, was a cliché.

Maybe life was just all one big cliché and he should get over himself.

But he could do that later. Now, they were landing, finally, in Colorado Springs, they were zipping along to the Mountain, and Daniel and Bill Lee were being cleaned and dosed and diagnosed and it was 0430 and everything was quiet. Finally. Even his head was quiet, because the “tired enough” had slipped into “dog tired” and all he wanted to do was to take a shower, himself, and sleep. He could put his drooled-upon shirt into the laundry and the dirt and the grime and the terror could be washed away by industrial soap and rhetoric and the deep sleep of the righteous rescuer.

Which meant he showered, got into fresh clothes, had a double coffee, and sat in an uncomfortable chair in the infirmary and watched Daniel sleep, his brain now in the overdrive of the desperately exhausted.

Perfect. Now he’d slithered from Shakespeare to soap opera, keeping his wee-hour vigil in the hopes of Daniel waking up and knowing, without having to be told, that Jack would give him the world if he’d only keep living another day. Oy. Not like Jack hadn’t always wanted to give Daniel the world, from the first moment that brilliant boy had scrubbed at that blackboard and said, “No, it means ‘stargate.’” Anyone who could so blithely and innocently upset years of work with the simple dash of a piece of chalk deserved the world.

Innocence. That was the next epiphany, as if they were lining up at the deli counter in his mind, taking numbers, waiting their turns to smack Jack O’Neill upside the brain. Daniel had been innocent, and Jack, for all his pain and the blood on his hands, was now an innocent himself, as if Daniel had transferred his blind faith and naivete to him through some misplaced gift of trust. This love, this upswelling of emotion, was so newly recognized and profound that Jack really did feel innocent, as if he was opening the door on a spring day that had been freshly washed by rain. Even these grey, military walls sparkled with the promise of new things to come. What would the ensuing hours hold? Dare he hope? How could he hope? Hope was for the passive. Hope was for children and the elderly who had nothing better to do than to wait for things to happen to them, for them – Christmas, death, new rollerskates, or a firmer glue for their dentures. For everyone else, life must be an action, or else there was only stagnation.

And he was nothing if not a man of action. Cliché, cliché, cliché.

So what was the action? What should he do? Keep his silence? Inaction was, in itself, an action. But that was the coward’s way, and he loathed a coward, especially when that coward was himself. He must, therefore, choose an action that spoke of his own, personal truth, but from that truth could come great and unpleasant consequences: Daniel could be horrified, revolted, turn him in to the MPs, so many horrible, harsh things that would sour that innocent love and turn it into a bitter regret. That was doing Daniel a disservice, though. Daniel would never be horrified, would never be revolted, would never, ever offer Jack up as a sacrificial, gay lamb to the militaristic slaughter.

That word, “gay.” How bizarre. Once it meant only to be “happy,” “joyful.” Now, it meant a lover of someone of the same sex, with intimations and expectations of sexual intercourse. He wasn’t gay, never had been. He’d never been homosexual, either. Not that he was homophobic, it just simply hadn’t crossed his mind, there had been other things to think about, like airplanes and sound barriers and snaky parasites. Yet now, he thought about male flesh, male hands on his own body, and it was simply a new state of being. The thoughts of being intimate with Daniel made him happy, so that was fine. Weird, but happy. He was easy going, low maintenance. Why get all bent out of shape about it?

Daniel. Thinking of Daniel brought a certain peace, even amongst the maelstrom of What If? Daniel wouldn’t be horrified or revolted, at worst, he would be uncomfortable. At best, he would love Jack in return. Wouldn’t that be convenient? Devoutly to be wished.

Was a wish the same as a hope? Did it lack a certain substance, something muttered to a star and recognized as That Which Will Never Happen? Or did it have the same impact as hope, something deep and revelatory that could transcend time and space and gender. Too confusing. Too much thinking, too many cliches, it was all too much and his brain hurt, and he could almost think he’d had his brain downloaded by the Ancient device for a second time.

Scrubbing his sleeve across his face, he realized that Daniel was awake, had been watching him for several minutes now. Though clouded with painkillers, the blue eyes were lucid enough to register every emotion that had been chasing themselves across Jack’s face like dogs after their own tails. Slowly, so slowly, as if they were trapped in a bubble of not-time, Daniel’s right hand, free of IV lines, crept out of the cool, hospital sheets and waited, palm up, for Jack’s hand. Eyes big, Jack moved his own hand forward, watched their fingers mesh together, the scrapes and bruises on Daniel’s fingers purple and rust counterpoint to the tanned, golden flesh of Jack’s knuckles.

“You came for me,” Daniel husked, licking at the broken skin of his dry lips.

“Yeah,” said Jack, tightening his hold on those battered digits.

“I thought I was hallucinating you,” Daniel said, the delicate skin around his eyes bruised and flinching from the memories.

Jack shook his head. “I’m sorry I was late.”

Daniel smiled faintly. “You were right on time,” he said roughly, and brought Jack’s hand to his mouth and kissed the back here the vein was blue and so close to the surface.

Jack opened his mouth to say something, something desperately profound, but the morning nurse brought by Daniel’s bland breakfast slop and another cup of coffee for Jack. Where had the hours gone?

“Although, actually,” Daniel amended, slurping up his breakfast with a moue of distaste, “I was starting to worry, there. You can be awfully slow when you put your mind to it, Jack, which is rather insulting, to both you and the rest of us who know you and your true innate intelligence.”

“Huh?” Jack said.

Daniel rolled his eyes and grinned and kissed Jack’s hand again with damp lips. “It’s been sheer torture, waiting for you to get with the program. You’re lucky I’m so stubborn.”

Jack’s eyes closed briefly, disbelieving of his luck, feeling the hopes and wishes give way to a shocking certainty. Well, whaddya know. Daniel had woken up and knew, without being told, that Jack wanted to give him the world. And was willing to give it right back.

While it might have been darkest before dawn; while his epiphanies might have been slow as molasses and few and far between; the bottom line was, they were as two peas in a pod, and as luck would have it, he’d been granted a chance to set the record straight.

He wanted to laugh out loud, jump for joy, and kiss the man senseless. This swell of emotion that was so new and fragile, yet ages old and solid as the foundations of the earth, this was between them, something upon which they stood, and wherever they were, it was enough, it got them where they needed to go, and though tremors sometimes ran deep into that foundation, they would always find each other, Gibraltar-solid. And it was a truth, not a cliché, not a truism, but a truth.

Jack looks up, face blank. Daniel’s glasses flash in the sunlight, sparkling with the refractions from silverware and dog tags. Then he remembers the question, and gestures down at the book he’s reading. “Wishing?” He supposed he had been wishing, in a vague, what am I doing here kind of way.  “For a fishing rod,” he lies.

Daniel’s thick eyebrows quirk as he reads the title of the book. Who brings Melville to Atlantis? “You came to a city in the middle of an ocean and you didn’t bring your fishing gear?” He’s got a stack of books in his arms and Jack knows he’s off to do more of his translating. How many of Daniel’s books were actual research material and how many were books brought as part of his personal allowance? Jack was sure it was a fuzzy line, if there was a line at all, between the two.

“Well, no,” Jack confesses, and is simultaneously irritated with himself for feeling that warm unclenching in his stomach, and amused with Daniel for his sass. “I brought a couple of poles. But I would have liked to have brought more.”

Daniel puts his books down on the table opposite Jack. “So make some,” he says. “There is a continent, after all. Over there. Somewhere.” He gestures vaguely out the window.

“I could do that,” Jack agrees, the amusement gaining a little on the irritation. He stretches out his legs so far, his feet poke out from the opposite side of the table. He nudges a chair, and Daniel slides gracelessly into the proffered seat. The amusement rate ratchets higher. Sometimes, Daniel was like a live wire, taut with energy and zapping, seemingly effortlessly, from place to place in his enthusiasm for learning more. And at other times? He was about as graceful as a rock falling off a cliff.

And then there was nothing to say, for a long while. Daniel runs a thumb, over and over, against the edges of a book, snapping the pages. Jack looks down at his book and realizes that it had been the perfect book to bring. His heart is shooting out of his chest right now, he can feel it. He’s mesmerized by Daniel’s thumb, and he has a brief, visceral memory of that same thumb, healed, broken, stroking his bottom lip and it’s all he can do not to cry right now.

“Look,” Daniel says finally, and his eyes are blue and depthless as the alien ocean outside that window.

“No,” Jack says, and he closes his book.

“No,” Daniel reiterates, but he means it differently. “I do love you.”

Jack stares out the window into the blinding alien sun. This was impossible. His heart was shooting out of his chest and breaking on the great white back of the inconceivable, of the utterly complex and logic-defying mass that was Daniel’s weird, all-encompassing love.

“I do,” Daniel whispers. “And it scares me to death when I’ve got a gun in my hand, because that means that I’ve changed for you more than I ever thought I would change for anyone.”

Jack still stares out the window. “I never meant to change you,” he says finally, softly.

“But you did,” Daniel says, but there’s no recrimination in his voice. He stands, gathers his books all in one arm so he can rest his fingertips on Jack’s shirt sleeve. “And I’m glad,” he adds in the barest of whispers and is gone through the shaft of sunlight.

Jack finally looks away from the window, sees Rodney across the room, looking tight-lipped and protective. Jack’s face is blank again as he stares at Rodney, almost daring him. Rodney looks away.

And Jack is back to his book, thinking, I wonder when I can take a jumper to the continent.

I wonder if Daniel will come with me . . .

“Do the usual, Daniel,” Jack said, waving towards the plinths that lined a long, paved roadway back towards the hot horizon. “Carter?”

But Sam was already shaking her head. “Nothing, sir. This is going to be Daniel’s barrel of monkeys.”

That got a glare from Daniel. Four years after the fact, and people still found ways to irritate him about monkeys and space. He was beginning to think that his revenge against Jack hadn’t been deep enough. Power-drilling a fake bass to Jack’s office door with a card that said “This is what a fish looks like” had been fairly satisfying at the time. Now, though, it seemed that it just hadn’t been sufficient. He’d have to think of something else, something more subtle. And the fact that it was years after the comment? Made it all the more sweet. Revenge, dishes served cold, that sort of thing.

While Daniel hauled out his archaeological kit and started cleaning out inscriptions and engravings, Jack tromped a slow circle around the Stargate while Sam and Teal’c ventured up towards the top of the dunes. Sam keyed her radio and reported, “Sir, the road goes off into the distance, and I think I see some buildings or monuments on the horizon.”

“Understood, Carter. You and Teal’c come back down here. I’m getting a funny feeling about this.” If there was anything Jack had learned, it was to always listen to his feelings, good or bad or funny. And usually, when on an alien planet, it was a funny feeling that quickly turned to bad. Granted, there was nothing here that really sat up and said funny or bad, but … it was too quiet. There wasn’t even a wind. Jack maneuvered back towards Daniel, who now had his notebook out and was obviously translating, his lips moving silently as he dragged a finger against rows and rows of hieroglyphs, right to left, up to down. “Daniel? Anything here, or can we get out of this big litter box?”

Daniel glanced briefly at him, his eyes startlingly blue against his light tan and the desert camo he wore. “Funny you should say that, Jack,” Daniel started, then there was the sound of a ring transporter, and four Jaffa appeared before the gate.

“Aw, crap,” Jack said, slinging his P-90 forward. But he was too late. Too quick, no time to think, it was almost embarrassing. Zat blasts took out Daniel and Jack, and before Sam and Teal’c could come within firing range, the Jaffa had grabbed their downed team members with unusual swiftness and efficiency, and ringed the six of them away. Sam and Teal’c stood, open-mouthed, before hurtling for the DHD.

It was a huge room. Huge. Bigger than the usual Goa’uld expression of hubris. There were lots and lots of pillars, tall, towering columns inscribed with more hieroglyphics. The place was actually well-kept, tidy, clean, filled with billowing draperies that wrapped and shimmied past all those imposing columns. The usual Jaffa lingered about, looking forbidding and alert and guarding a currently empty throne of white marble. The Goa’uld always did seem to go in for uncomfortable furniture, but Jack was glad – he hoped it gave them hemorrhoids. Petty, but true. Anything to make a snakehead’s life even just an iota more unpleasant. And it was Jack’s goal in life to up the unpleasant factor as high as he could.

“So,” he said to the nearest bastion of Jaffa imperturbability, “who’s the head honcho around here?”

The Jaffa didn’t even deign to answer.

Jack shrugged and turned to Daniel who was, like he, kneeling with his hands tied behind him. “Any clues?”

Daniel made a wry face. “Bast,” he said.

“Bast?” Jack asked. He remembered the name, just not the usual long explanation of myth, fable and place in the Egyptian pantheon.

“Cat goddess,” Daniel began. “She was the daughter of Ra and initially was a goddess of the sun. She became a goddess of the moon after the Greeks got their hands on Egypt. She was the protector of women, and her totem animal was the cat, an animal of secrets, great hunting skills, and stealth. To harm one of her animals was considered a great crime. Cats were kept in the temples to help with the rat populations and as a physical manifestation of the goddess herself.”

“Daughter of Ra?” Jack asked, alarmed, focusing on the one thing that really meant anything to him. “D’oh. The fact that we offed Daddy-o probably won’t go over so well.”

Daniel shrugged, a tight movement dictated by his bound arms. “Maybe she’ll be grateful, like Osiris.”

Jack gave him a sharp look. Daniel rarely spoke of Sarah Gardner, and certainly never in such light, unconcerned tones.

“Well, let’s hope,” Jack said finally. “Anything positive about this would be a help.”

“A help to whom?” asked a low voice from behind them, and Jack and Daniel started in surprise and turned their heads to view the Goa’uld du jour.

Bast was beautiful. Of course she was, Jack thought to himself, eyeing Her Evil Gorgeousness appreciatively while simultaneously hating her guts. She was small, with fine bones and straight black hair and yellow eyes. Not just the usual glowing gold of Goa’uld eyes, but actual amber eyes that seemed far too perceptive for Jack’s own good, staring at him unblinkingly like … well, like a cat’s. She did the usual smug Goa’uld parade around Jack and Daniel, dragging her finger lightly over Jack’s bisected eyebrow, trailing the back of her hand along Daniel’s cheek, tapping inquisitively on Daniel’s glasses. She removed the glasses gently, peered through them, shrugged, let them drop to the ground, and drove her heel into them. The crunch of glass and metal separating violently seemed to echo and bounce from pillar to pillar.

“Do not hide such beauty,” the woman said, her voice rich with symbiote reverberation, tilting Daniel’s face up to scrutinize more closely the fair skin, the blue eyes, the small beauty mark on the left cheek. She brushed a thumb over Daniel’s bottom lip, then quirked a smile at Jack, who was staring in impotent, silent fury. “I am handling your man,” Bast said to Jack, continuing to stroke Daniel’s lip. Even as the Goa’uld goddess found more and more amusement in the situation, Jack found his reservoir of humor drying up in a heat-flash of anger.

“He is my friend,” Jack said flatly and immediately. “I don’t understand – no, I don’t care to understand what you mean by ‘my man.’” Jack was pissed at himself for showing how much he cared about Daniel right off the bat, but the Goa’uld had surprised him. It would be so easy, now, for Bast to use Daniel against him. But she was going to do that anyway, so why regret now the semantics of the how and why? “If anything, he is his own man.” Jack looked away from Bast, his eyes drawn unerringly to the sight of Daniel’s glasses, shattered under her tiny, sandal-bound foot.

Bast merely waved her hand impatiently. “Semantics. You humans, so concerned with words,” she said, her tone clearly bespeaking her boredom. “It is action that defines a man. Or goddess, as the case may be.” A final pass around Daniel and Jack, and she went to sit on her marble throne. As if that was a cue, there was the soft sound of mewing, and a dozen cats drifted out from behind flowing gauzy drapes, slinking beside the throne and jumping into Bast’s lap, curling behind her on the back of the throne, draping themselves across her feet. Jack had to bite his lip from saying something incredibly crude about pussies.

“Look,” Daniel said, peering in the direction of Bast. “Shall we cut right to the chase? What do you want from us? Are you going to torture us? Use us against another Goa’uld? Let us go, perhaps?” Daniel’s voice was hopeful in that way that said he knew there was no way in Netu he and Jack would be getting out of this one unscathed, let alone alive.

Bast merely bent her amber gaze to Daniel’s face and considered him thoughtfully, stroking a short-haired midnight cat who sat, Sphinx-like, on her knees. “I do not know,” she admitted finally, scratching behind the cat’s ears. “I’m thinking I would like to bed you both, perhaps together, perhaps one at a time.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Well, that’s refreshingly blunt,” he said casually, shifting painfully on his crappy knees. “Not unexpected, but your candor is much appreciated. Hathor had the same direct honesty.”

“Until we killed her,” Daniel added happily, staring at Bast, his blue eyes hard and cold. “You won’t get much of a good time out of us, I’m afraid,” he said bitingly. “We don’t care for your kind. In fact, most of your kind end up just like Hathor, very, very disappointed and very, very dead.”

Bast shrugged, a maneuver both elegant and chilling. Jack bit the inside of his lip. “Do you think I am stupid, Daniel Jackson? You are the man who opened the Tau’ri Gate. You were the husband to the host of Amonet. You are known as the heart and conscience of SG-1. Oh, yes, Daniel Jackson, I know who you are. I remember you from the gathering of System Lords. You were dancing attendance on Yu. So pretty. So fetching, with those bare arms, and those exotic blue eyes. I must say, your slave gear was attractive, if a bit heavy-handed. The clothing I choose for my slaves is far more flattering.”

“Trust a woman to think about fashion,” Jack muttered.

“And you, Colonel Jack O’Neill of SG-1,” Bast said, turning her feline gaze on Jack. “Scourge of the Goa’uld. The thorn in Apophis’s side. Conspirator with the godless Tok’ra, protected of the Asgard, confidante of Thor.” Jack preened and flashed Daniel a grin, who returned it with one that was part amusement and part obvious pride. “Between you, Daniel Jackson, Samantha Carter, and the shol’va, Teal’c, you have killed Ra, Cronus, Hathor, Heru’ur, Sokar, Seth … ”

“A Who’s Who of the Parasitic and Badly Dressed,” Jack offered with a nasty smile, regretting the words the instant they left his mouth, and that’s when the claws came out. So to speak.

Not even standing from her throne, her bare right arm still petting the black cat, the Goa’uld queen raised her left hand with the ribbon device and blasted Jack with a sharp roiling of power. Jack was sent skidding across the marble floor into a pillar, his head making blunt contact with the base. He lay stunned for a moment, then was dragged by two Jaffa back to Daniel’s side and forced back to his knees. He could feel a trickle of blood from his temple where skull had met stone. The number of cats around Bast shifted sickeningly, multiplying and subtracting with concussed rapidity.

“This is boring, Colonel,” Bast said, now stroking the cat with both hands. It stretched and purred, its contented rumble clearly reaching to the kneeling men. “There are far more pleasant things we could be doing besides sparring pointlessly, like scribes over a favorite papyrus. I am going to play with you. Toy with you. Enjoy you. You will be willing. Both of you. Because if you are not, I shall harm the other.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “So kill us, already,” he said in his most bored tone. “Because neither of us will make it easy for you, you won’t like it, and it would be just faster to kill us now and save us all the hassle.” While Jack admired Daniel’s bravado, he wasn’t quite sure about his current method of snake-baiting. Openly inviting the Goa’uld to kill them seemed a bit extreme, even for Jack. These things should be done with some modicum of subtlety.

Bast, too, was not pleased with Daniel’s words. She finally stood, gently placing her black cat on the wide arm of the throne and descending the pristine white steps to stand in front of Daniel, his eyes level with her breasts and the gold-and-lapis necklace that lay wide against her chest. She cupped his face in her hands and bent down to brush his lips with hers. “I shall kill you,” she said softly, but not so softly that Jack could not hear. “And then I shall revive you in my sarcophagus and begin again. Over and over, Daniel Jackson. Over. And over. I shall savor your flesh and bathe in your blood. For as long as I wish to play with you, my pretty Tau’ri.” She licked a long, wet line from his chin to his hairline. “My cats have nine lives. I wonder if humans do as well.”

That shut Daniel up in a hurry.

They were taken through wide, airy corridors adorned with gold hieroglyphs, enormous vases filled with flowers and catnip, past tall, glass-less windows girded by shutters that could be closed against sandstorms. They were led to a bathing room with a huge, in-ground tub big enough to swim laps in, and were told to bathe and dress.

With a minimum of effort, they did, casting eyes at the Jaffa standing guard inside the bathing room, knowing they couldn’t say anything about Teal’c or Sam on the off-hand chance that Bast was unaware of their presence on the planet. Jack wouldn’t bet on it, though. Bast knew they came as a complete set of four, and he was pretty sure there were only three possible scenarios right now: that Sam and Teal’c were also prisoners, that they were dead, or that they were shut off from the gate. In any of those scenarios, he and Daniel were still trapped here, cat toys for the ultimate bitch in heat.

Much to Daniel’s irritation, Jack couldn’t stop yammering about the clothes Bast wanted them to wear, although Jack thought “clothes” was a generous word with which to describe the garments. Short, pleated linen skirts were all they had, and Jack was about ready to pop a blood vessel. Daniel, on the other hand, just stared at the skirts in distaste, then slid his on. Really, it was just an Egyptian thing, and he’d done the Egyptian thing enough times in his life to just shrug and try to bear the vague ignominy of flashing his legs to the world. He even allowed the gold armbands and the gleaming pectoral with the lapis scarab, but he dug in his heels at the earrings. Both men nearly came to blows with the obviously cowed woman who tried to paint their eyes with kohl.

“No way in hell,” Jack snarled, throwing the little clay pot across the room, where it shattered with a satisfying crack against the marble wall. “She wants her toys, they’re coming as-is, no more extras.” He began stripping his own armbands off but stopped when a Jaffa shifted his grip on his staff weapon.

“But, Tau’ri – ” she began in Egyptian, “you must, it is Your Goddess’s desire.”

Daniel precisely translated Jack’s words for her, adding, “Your mangy little mistress is just going to have to get used to the idea that we’re not going to come quietly. She wants us, she’ll have to fight for us.”

Trembling, the woman bowed out of the room and fled, leaving Jack and Daniel to avoid each other’s eyes and stare out the windows at the rolling dunes far below. Every now and then, a cat would stroll into the room, the door held open by a Jaffa as if the cat was royalty. Which, Jack supposed, they were, according to Daniel.

“I can’t believe this,” Jack muttered as he joined Daniel at a window, standing shoulder to bare shoulder with him. “Stuck with nuttiest Goa’uld of all.”

“Well, at least she hasn’t breathed on us or put us in a fiery hell-pit,” Daniel said, moving his right leg away from the attentions of a marmalade tabby. “That’s some comfort.”

“I dunno,” Jack said, rolling his eyes and bumping Daniel’s arm with his. “I think I’d rather be rotting in Netu than being pimped out to the Fancy Feast calendar girl.” It was hard coming out with the humor, though. There was something about Bast that was chilling, crushing any attempt at jocularity. Jack was getting the dim feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to smart-mouth his way through this one.

Daniel snorted in amusement. “Maybe … you know … ” He wiggled his eyebrows in a vain attempt to say “Sam and Teal’c” without actually speaking aloud.

Jack’s face sobered. “Don’t hold your breath, Daniel,” he said quietly. “We can only count on ourselves, you know that.”

Daniel nodded, equally serious now. “Jack,” he began, running the pleats of his skirt through his fingers. “If she uses the sarcophagus – ”

“One thing at a time,” Jack said brusquely, nervously twisting an armband. “Maybe she was bluffing.”

Daniel snorted in rampant disbelief and irritation, and channeled that irritation into the ability to stop his frantic skirt-twitching and stare out at the sun-struck desert.

They took Daniel first. A Jaffa on each arm, he was escorted out of their room by five cats, their tails held high. Jack didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They were caught in a Cecil B. De Mille movie that was rife with crass, sneering villains and a bad wardrobe department. It was his worst nightmare. Add to that the very real fact that, crass villains or not, their captor was a Goa’uld, and Daniel had just been marched away to get raped. It was tearing Jack apart inside, and his own confusion over his inner turmoil did not mix well with the humiliation of being an unwilling lead actor in this bastardized version of Cleopatra. If they ever made it back to the SGC, and Ferretti got wind of this, he’d never live it down. He’d find Purina Cat Chow in his coffee maker, he was sure of it.

So there was nothing to do while he waited – either for Daniel or for Bast’s minions – but think on their time here on Krazy Kat World and try to figure out some way to escape. He thumbed through ideas in his mind like a tired deck of cards, but he wasn’t coming up with any winning hands. There were too many Jaffa, they had no weapons – hell, they didn’t even have clothes, now – and there was no knowing how far from the gate they might be. Jack could surmise that he and Daniel were being held in the buildings that Carter had spotted from the dune by the Gate, but there was no guarantee of this.

He was no closer to an escape solution three hours later when the Jaffa and the feline escort came for him. Kept in their firm grips, Jack was marched back down the wide hallways to a lush garden courtyard, open to the sky and full of soft divans, low tables, seemingly millions of exotic, tasseled pillows, and palm trees. In the center of the courtyard were two tall, smooth columns of white marble topped with carved cats, and it was to one of these that Daniel was shackled, his arms chained above him to a ring set into the marble. His head lolled back against the column, the tracks of blood tears running down his cheeks and throat, his smooth chest blotted with welts, his hips bruised. His skirt was at his feet, shredded and bloody, and his legs were black with deep claw marks. His eyes when they met Jack’s were glassy and dark.

“Jack,” Daniel sighed, pulling at his chains.

“Daniel,” Jack said, lunging for him, almost brushing Daniel’s chest with his fingertips before the Jaffa yanked him away. “Are you all right?”

Daniel laughed, brittle and tight. “Still breathing,” he said lightly, and groaned when his knees gave way and he was hanging by the chains. Jack was shackled to the second white pillar, facing Daniel.

“What has she done to you?” Jack asked, yanking futilely at his chains.

Daniel gestured with his chin towards a small table set to one side on which rested a long pipe and a bowl full of a brown herb. “Catnip for people,” he said muzzily, struggling back to his feet. “It’s got a hell of a kick.”

Jack didn’t like the sound of this. “What does it do?”

“It does many things,” that silky Goa’uld voice said from behind Jack, and he was instantly irritated at the way Bast kept slinking up on them unexpectedly. Like a goddamn cat.

Bast had changed clothes, too. Whereas before she had worn the expected Egyptian goddess kalasiris of long, pleated white linen and strappy sandals, she now wore a tight, cloth-of-gold number that was more an accessory than a dress. Her feet were bare, and she ran her hands over her breasts luxuriously, her fingernails long, tapered and painted with gold. Jack didn’t find it difficult in the least to not stare at her well-proportioned body. Something about the fact that that pretty woman had a snaky parasite in her head took all the sensual allure out of things. Go figure. Behind her came six Jaffa pushing a golden sarcophagus which they placed by Bast, the apex of a triangle formed with the two marble plinths. Then they retreated to guard the sun-drenched courtyard, their faces unmoving. Bast ran her hand lovingly over the hieroglyphs of the sarcophagus before approaching Daniel.

“Lovely Tau’ri,” Bast rumbled in her throat, so like a purr, rubbing along Daniel’s body, thrusting her hips sinuously against Daniel’s naked groin. He was hard, and Jack guessed the people-catnip had something to do with it. “You are so lovely, so flawless,” she murmured, running her hands over his chest, licking his armpits, nibbling at his collarbone.

“Leave him alone, you flea-bitten bitch,” Jack growled, straining at his chains. Yes, he cared about Daniel, he was protective of him, Bast knew that, would use it against him. The jig had been up right from the start, and he was going to give the bitch hell while he could.

Bast smiled at him, a lazy, creamy smile and she actually licked her lips, slow and sensuous, tongue leaving a wet saliva trail over her upper lip, then her lower. Jack shuddered. “Rude human,” she murmured at Jack while her hand ran over the welts on Daniel’s chest, digging her nails into the tender skin. Daniel bit back a cry and his eyes locked with Jack’s. Hang in there, Jack told him silently. Then that small hand slid further down Daniel’s skin, cupping his balls, squeezing his cock, before she slid to her knees, grasped Daniel’s hips in bruising fists, and took him in her mouth.

“N-no,” Daniel stuttered, and his hips jerked, first towards, then away, from her mouth, the desire and revulsion clear on his face. Bast flexed her hands, digging her long, golden nails into the skin of his thighs and Jack realized, horrified, that those weren’t just prettily decorated fingernails, but sharp wedges of cartilage that had been lacquered to a steely hardness. Sliding her mouth off Daniel, a long string of saliva trailing from her mouth, Bast turned to look at Jack over her shoulder, a smug smile on her lips. Then she punched two of those fingernails into Daniel’s left femoral artery.

Jack wanted to be sick. While he hollered and shouted imprecations, he wanted to turn his head and vomit all over the pretty tile courtyard, but he couldn’t leave Daniel’s gaze, couldn’t leave Daniel to feel his life draining out of him, alone. He kept his face turned to Daniel’s, even as those eyes, so blue, like the Aegean Sea, started to glaze over. The blood poured from his thigh, rich and red, and Bast touched her tongue delicately to the wound and began to lap at it.

Minutes passed, Jack fell silent, sickened and heart-sick, and still Bast tongued the wound, letting the blood run over her chin, down her neck, pooling between her perfect breasts, sliding down her belly, her hands clutching spasmodically on Daniel’s calves, and Daniel’s face lost all color, shading from tan to pink to a ghastly, paper-white. Jack never once broke the look he had with Daniel, their gazes locked, even as Daniel’s eyes lost focus, lost depth, lost life.

“Jack,” Daniel groaned, and his eyes slowly closed. Then his body sagged until he was nothing more than beautiful muscle and skin hanging from the silver chains.

After a few more minutes of licking, Bast rose and gestured to her Jaffa, who unchained Daniel’s bloody body and dragged it to the sarcophagus. Opening the casket with a grind, they pitched Daniel’s body inside like a sack of meal. But the sarcophagus did not close.

Jack tasted blood and realized he had bitten his lip. He barely acknowledged Bast when the Goa’uld queen stood before him, his eyes riveted on Daniel’s lifeless body in the sarcophagus. He didn’t even notice when her tongue, still red with Daniel’s blood, began to lick at the corners of his mouth, her hands stroking his nipples. Only when she ripped the linen kilt from his hips did his gaze drift back to her, shocky and unstable.

“O’Neill of the Tau’ri,” Bast whispered, cupping his balls in her fingernails, like ripe peaches balanced precariously on the tips of needles. He hadn’t been dosed with the people-nip, and those nails felt like railroad spikes. “How the System Lords will clamor to hear the tales of this.” Jack felt himself suddenly snap into focus, the fear thrumming through him as Bast fondled him almost delicately. Her teeth, sharp and edged like a cat’s, latched onto a nipple and Jack gritted his teeth to keep himself silent. Her pointed nails scored down his chest, down his ribs, from his hips to his thighs, and then he saw her go to her knees and closed his eyes. A few labored breaths later and he was in her mouth, limp and practically shriveling, and he felt sick again. Then there was the driving pain in his thigh, and the warm rush of blood down his leg, and he felt the world begin to swim. His last thought as his life ebbed out over Bast’s lips was that, at least, they would put him with Daniel in the sarcophagus and they could be dead together.

They awoke lying on a large, soft bed, the soothing shadows of the moon blowing in through the floor-length draperies that covered the windows. They lay there, hyper-aware of each other and of themselves, listening to the sound of their blood pumping once again through their veins. Daniel wanted to groan as he shifted, but he found, just like so many years ago, that he felt good. Better than good. He felt energized. And the knowledge of why he felt so good drained all the strength from his limbs. “Well, shit,” he said softly to the white canopy overhead.

“That about sums it up,” Jack replied, just as softly, then turned on his side and propped his head up on his hand to look at Daniel. “You all right?” he asked.

“For having been dead?” Daniel asked, not looking at Jack. “You bet. Can’t wait for it to happen again. Once more, with feeling.”

“What do you suppose she’s up to? I mean, why not sling us into a dungeon or whatever passes for a dungeon in this place, instead of giving us a nice, soft bed? What’s up with that?” Jack shimmied a little closer to Daniel, needing to feel the heat from Daniel’s skin. This mission had turned so ugly and so surreal in a matter of minutes. Daniel was normal, was comforting, was … Daniel.

Daniel shrugged, his eyes still on the canopy. “I don’t know. Well, I can guess.” And he was silent.

“So guess already,” Jack urged, poking him gently with his free hand.

Daniel batted the hand away in irritation. “I think it’s just mind games,” he said slowly, thoughtfully, finally turning his head to look at Jack, his face a tapestry of moonlight and dark shadows. “I think she’s giving us time together to make us feel normal, or something, and then she’ll start all over again tomorrow and it’ll be that much harder for us after having a respite.”

“Oh.” Jack thought on this a while, and didn’t like his conclusions. “This is going to suck.”

Daniel snorted. “Ya think? What gave it away?”

Jack grimaced. “Smart ass.” He thought for another long moment, then said, “I’m hungry. And there’s food and something to drink over there.” Pointing at a well-laden table across the room, he sat up and realized that he was naked under the light sheet that covered them. “Well, hell,” he commented, looking at his naked thighs.

Daniel made the same discovery and pondered for a moment before shrugging, pulled the sheet around him – which brought an annoyed “Hey!” from Jack – and made his stumbling way to the table. Jack rolled his eyes, ripped a drapery off the bed, wrapped it around himself, and joined Daniel, who had already started in on the fruit and icy water.

They ate in silence for a while, handing each other bread, cheeses, and spicy dried meats that neither wanted to guess what it might be. After they had sated themselves and drunk half the water in one gulp, they sank back in their chairs, looking soberly into the depths of their cups.

“Suppose there’s any point to seeing what’s out there?” Daniel asked, gesturing beyond the blowing draperies to what was obviously a veranda.

“I wouldn’t think so,” Jack said, just as a shadow passed before the window. “Yup. Jaffa. I’m betting lots of ‘em.”

“And even if we did try to escape,” Daniel added gloomily, “and even if she killed us, she’d just bring us back to life in the sarcophagus. Oh, the choices. Die at her whim or ours. I’m thinking, the fewer times in the sarcophagus, the better.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jack agreed, draining his cup. “So no escape right now. Why add on extra deaths?”

Daniel turned a little pale, visible even in the moonlight. “Why, indeed?” he said softly.

“Daniel?” Jack sat forward, a hand coming over the table to touch Daniel’s forearm.

Daniel took a deep breath, centering himself. “I’m fine,” he said, attempting a smile that came out small and beleaguered.

Jack’s hand settled warmly on Daniel’s arm, then clasped and tugged. “Let’s go be comfortable,” he said, and led Daniel over to the bed.

They arranged themselves beneath the sheet that Daniel unwound from his hips, and after a few moments of lying stiffly next to each other, again aware of their bodies, their nakedness, their pained vulnerability, Jack rolled over and took Daniel in his arms, feeling the younger man’s cool skin against his own like fresh cotton. “We’ll figure this out,” Jack whispered into Daniel’s hair, and Daniel nodded, holding Jack’s shoulders in an iron grip. They lay that way for a little while, their breaths slowing, evening, the thumping of their hearts calming. Then they settled into the mattress, their backs firmly pressed against each other so they could, futilely, keep an eye on the room beyond their bed.

The next time Bast chained them to the pillars, she chained them facing the stone so they couldn’t see each other, their arms wrapped around the pillars, cheeks pressed to the marble. To make it worse, she blindfolded them, so all they could do was talk to each other, hear each other. There really was nothing they could say but “Hang in there” and “I’m here for you” and “Breathe through it” like it was some sort of obscene Lamaze class. They knew they were mouthing platitudes. All that really helped was knowing that each man was so intently focused on the other, their thoughts so centered on the other, they could have sworn they were inside each other’s minds.

For her entertainment, the Cat Queen used a cat o’ nine tails, each strip of the whip tipped with a barb that caught cruelly at the flesh. Over and over she lashed them, wandering back and forth between Jack and Daniel, a bloody trail of her footprints marking over the pristine courtyard tiles between the two men. She talked at them, endlessly, describing how they looked in great detail, her words sharp and gloating as she pulled off shreds of their flesh and tossed them to her cats. Then she herself shimmied up behind each of them, running her tongue over the gouges in their backs, raspy and laving, from their shoulders down to their waists, then over the deeply carved runnels in their buttocks and thighs. Once, Daniel shuddered as she sucked the blood from the back of his knee and he choked out, “You really are a sick bitch, you know that?” and she merely dug one of her lethal fingernails in between his third and fourth ribs and pulled herself up his body like climbing a rock wall with pitons.

When it was Jack’s turn to serve as a bloody buffet, he tried to make some comment about Bast coughing up hairballs, but he couldn’t get the tone right, his voice flat and plodding with pain.

When they died this time, they had no skin left on their entire backsides, their blood running freely from tortured veins and muscles. Bast’s cats milled about their feet, lipping at the streams of blood that ran between them and joined in a pool at the foot of the sarcophagus.

They awoke just as the sun was setting, fresh energy racing through them, laid out side by side on the bed. They didn’t move for a while, merely lay there, feeling how fresh and new their skin felt, their backs rubbing against the cool sheets, the wind whispering over their healed skin. Sinew and tendon flexed properly again as they rolled and sat up, gingerly testing their shoulders, their backs, inspecting each other to reassure themselves that they were whole again. Finally, still without speaking, not bothering with the dubious coverage of sheet or drapery, they arose as one in their bare skins and went to the table where dinner waited for them. Still in silence, they ate, consumed by their own thoughts, dark and brooding. But they sat with their chairs flush against each other so their arms knocked as they reached for goblets, their knees brushed under the fine linen tablecloth. They shared the same plate and the same cup, eating quickly, drinking deeply. The water was icy, and in a small carafe they found a sweetened wine of lotus flowers.

“How many times has she killed us now?” Jack asked at one point, his voice husky.

Daniel shrugged listlessly. “I don’t know. I lost count.”

And they were silent again until they were finished with their meal.

When they did finally speak at length, it was to murmur words of comfort. No more trying to figure out what Bast’s plan was. It was obvious. They were toys, truly toys to her, bright, shiny Tau’ri toys, somethings, not someones, to be played with. Every time she took their blood and flesh from them, they felt the despair deeper in their hearts, like a sick, lurking feeling that could never be vomited up. So they tried to stem that sickness and spoke of Sam and Teal’c, wondering if they were alive, if they were back home, if they c