"So did you learn anything useful?" What Jack really wanted to know was how his friend, a six foot, one hundred and seventy pound complex mass of contradictions was handling having spent the morning with a woman he'd had trouble even looking at the previous day.

"Actually, I learned several interesting things."

O'Neill could honestly say he'd never met anyone like Dr. Daniel Jackson. A passive scholar who hadn't given a second thought to stepping in front of a staff weapon blast to save the life of someone he'd only known for a few days. Someone who in truth had treated him with only a shred of decency. A naive archeologist seeking knowledge who easily lost himself in studying ruins to the exclusion of everything around him. A diplomatic linguist who had spoken over twenty languages when he first joined the SGC. How many he now spoke was anyone's guess. A shy anthropologist who rushed to meet new people, wanting to learn about their cultures, rarely seeing the possiblity of danger. By all military standards the multiple Phd, who valued life above all else should have been dead long ago.

Psychologists said a person's personality, their very nature was developed in their earliest years. If that was the case than Daniel's parents had done one hell of a job in the eight short years before their tragic deaths.

It seemed as if life had chosen Daniel as it's official whipping boy, always teasing him with moments of happiness only to snatch it away or worse replacing those moments with tragedy, yet he was the kindest, gentlest and most ethical human being Jack had ever been priviledged to know. When it came right down to it, he could also be the most stubborn, obstinate and bullheaded person, (except for maybe Jack himself) that O'Neill had ever known. When the young anthropologist thought he was right, he stuck to his guns with the tenacity of a bulldog, regardless of the odds. A trait that at one point in his life had damn near cost him everything.

Although no one dared voice it, Jack knew the other teams of the SGC had considered Daniel not only a risk to himself and the others but also as somewhat of a joke. Makepeace had made it clear that he considered the offworld exploration teams no place for a civilian but even he had come to respect and watch over the resilient linguist who put one hundred and ten percent of himself into everything he did.

Daniel had done everything Jack asked of him from self defense training to learning how to fire the sidearm the colonel insisted he carry, but the compassionate side of his nature almost always overruled Jack's preaching. In all honesty Daniel had talked them out of some pretty precarious situations and had laid his own life on the line in defense of his teammates more times than any of them cared to count.

By no means would he ever meet the military standards of a soldier and for that Jack was thankful. He had once called Daniel their conscience and that was what they needed more than another soldier with a sharp shooter's medal. Daniel's parents would be proud of the man he'd grown to be and Jack felt honored to call him friend.

The close relationship the soldier and the scientist shared was incomprehensible to most people. The two men who seemed so totally opposite in every aspect yet were not as different as some would think. Life had taken time from stepping on Daniel to give Jack a lot of swift kicks as well.

Although Jack hadn't spent his formative years, being shuffled from one foster home to another with the legal system as his formal guardian, his own childhood hadn't exactly been the subject of Norman Rockwell paintings.