A Life in Ruins

~Chapter 2 - Shattered Dreams~

"Daniel?"

Daniel vacillated between the present and the past; between a torrent of fists and the closing of her eyes.

"Daniel."

Between the smoky depths of a half-filled glass and a sloshing jug of Abydonian wine, he rode the waves of what was and what is, and in the trough of that wave he wept.

"Daniel!"

His eyes flashed open, his head pulled away from the aluminum corner of the phone booth. The alcohol flooding his veins dampened each puff of air. His hazy vision rose to the direction of the voice, and there behind the scratched Plexiglas was a figure of a man, staring at him. Somehow he knew his face.

"Jack?" he asked, or maybe he just thought the question.

"Daniel?" Jack said, tapping on the wet glass. "You with me?"

Daniel closed his eyes again, not to drift, but to attempt to clear his thoughts.

"Where am I?" he asked the squalid air.

"Daniel, time to go," Jack said, raising his voice in order for Daniel to hear him.

Daniel pulled his hand across his face, smearing half-dried blood over his chin. He swallowed the spit gathering at the back of his throat, opened his eyes and slowly began to recognize the sight of blood swathed across his soiled palm. He held his hand closer to his eyes, his vision distorted from the drink, made worse by the absence of his glasses.

"I think I cut myself," he said, blinking, hoping to clear his blurred vision.

Jack balled up his hand and rapped on the window. "Come on, Daniel. Let�s go."

The tight acoustics of the booth amplified the crashing noise, and Daniel�s muted attention quickly came into focus. He squinted his eyes and saw, for the first time, perhaps the one person he didn�t want to see. Not like this. Even in his drunkenness, Daniel felt the bristle of shame scatter through him and he felt his resistance crumbling again. His head bobbled, his lips tightened, and his hand waved Jack away.

"Leave me alone," he cried, the words faltering over anesthetized lips. The phone�s receiver dangled near his face, and as he watched its listless rocking back and forth, Daniel became dizzy. "I don�t want you here."

Jack scanned the streets, hoping there were no witnesses to Daniel�s situation. The shroud of Plexiglas deadened the sound coming from inside, so Jack couldn�t hear Daniel�s slurred demands, not that he really cared anyhow. Out late, in the cold rain, recovering a drunken teammate�none of these things spelled compassion in Jack.

"Listen, Daniel, come on out. I�ll take you home," Jack said.

Daniel punched his elbow into the side of the booth and yelled, "Go away!"

Somewhat taken aback by Daniel�s vehemence, Jack blinked. Then he grabbed the side of the booth, gave it as much of a shake as he could, and yelled back, "Ya should have thought of that before you called me, ya son of a�" One more good shake in lieu of the profanity.

"I di�n�t call you," Daniel insisted, closing his eyes, turning once again to the corner.

"Of course you didn�t. I just happened to be scouting phone booths at O-dark-hundred and found you. How the hell do you think I got here, Daniel?" he growled, searching for the door, knowing full well his question wouldn�t reach Daniel�s inebriated ear. He rounded the side of the phone booth and couldn�t for the life of him figure out how Daniel had been able to wedge himself into the confined space so tightly. These booths were hardly big enough for a grown man to stand in, much less puddle up on the floor.

"Listen, Daniel, you�re gonna have to stand up," Jack said, trying to force open the door without somehow slicing Daniel in half.

"It�s just too hard," Daniel sighed, incomprehensibly commenting on his inner turmoil. His hands pooled in his lap. "I can�t do it anymore."

"You�re gonna have to," Jack told him, searching the door�s hinges for a way to extricate his friend. "Listen, the way I see it, we have two options: you can stand up and let me open the door, or I can tip this thing over. Even in your gin-soaked condition you can see that option one is the better choice."

"I can�t," Daniel mumbled. His eyes, red and puffy, opened, and he looked up at Jack through the refracting light, recognizing that face once again. "Jack?"

"Yeah, Daniel. It�s me." Jack grasped hold of the side of the booth and ascertained how much leverage he was going to need in order to topple the thing. He figured it was somewhere on the order of one good shove and the assistance of Teal�c. Otherwise, they were screwed unless Daniel could get off the damn floor. "Look, buddy, pal, you�re gonna have to get up. So�get up. One, two, three, and up we go! Up! Just�Daniel, you have to get off your ass."

"I don�t�I don�t feel very well," Daniel muttered, his fingers trailing against the bumpy aluminum wall.

"Yeah, well, go figure," Jack said, crouching down and pushing the door open as far as it would go, and when he got a look at Daniel from that level, he once again could see that Daniel was far less drunk than a pile of emotional wreckage. The pungent stench of stale liquor only added to the pathetic image.

"Listen, Daniel, I can�t help you unless you can get to your feet. Daniel," he said, reaching inside the cramped space to offer Daniel his open hand, "let me help."

Daniel�s eyes slid from the hand to the half-obscured face through the crack of the door. He inhaled sharply, and his lower lip began to tremble. Why wouldn�t it all just go away, he wondered? He closed his eyes against the vertigo, against the churning of his stomach and the breaking of his heart. "It�s too hard. I just�I can�t do it."

"Yes, you can," Jack said, sending all his patience and compassion through the small opening. "All you have to do is take my hand, okay? Come on, Danny. Take it."

"Danny," he whispered, as if that name from his childhood coaxed his rational mind awake and his eyes to open. "Jack?"

"Yeah. How ya feel about giving me your hand?"

Daniel stared at the hand on his knee and pulled his own crumpled and bloodied right hand from his lap, giving it with a flop to Jack.

"Good," Jack said, nodding while he kept watch on Daniel.

Daniel blinked, staring at the two joined hands. A distant throb of agony beat inside his body and it seemed to originate in his hand, but he couldn�t figure out why. No more pain, he begged, finding his eyes shutting once again, this time in surrender to that omnipotent feeling of loss. "It hurts, Jack."

Jack peered through the wedged door at Daniel�s right hand�raw knuckles, bleeding and meaty, and the top of it, raised and swollen. "Yeah, it looks like it does." Jack pressed his shoulder into the opening a little farther and grabbed Daniel by the wrist.

"It�it�s just�I can�t make the pain go away," Daniel said, his voice grainy with resignation.

"Yeah, well, broken bones have a way of doing that," Jack said, holding tight to his friend, who, much to Jack�s relief, was beginning to stand. "Up and at �em. Here we go."

The arm went first, the lax shoulder followed, and before Daniel realized it, he was somehow on his feet. Jack didn�t for a moment release Daniel�s wrist, but opened the phone booth�s door, hung up the receiver, and pulled his friend from its confines.

"Okay, good." Jack moved slowly, wrapping his arm around Daniel�s back, holding the bloody hand upright, pressing it gently against Daniel's rain-soaked wool sweater. "Let�s go home."

With slow, stumbling footing, the two made their way to Jack�s truck. Jack steadied Daniel against the side and opened the passenger door for him.

"Watch yourself." Jack tucked Daniel�s head into the cab, his hair matted and wet from rain and sweat. Daniel lumbered into the truck, dragged in his left foot, let Jack shove the right one in, and gave into the heaviness of his skull. It fell forward, his chin to his chest, both hands heaped in his lap. One deep breath, and his head rose, only to fall again with a sob.

"I don�t want this," he whispered, tears cascading down and off his nose, onto his hands.

"What�s that?" Jack asked, climbing behind the wheel and fastening his seat belt.

"I can�t do it," Daniel sobbed, his hand lifting and then falling against his thigh.

"Okay. So, what? You need me to�"

"It�s just, it hurts too much," Daniel said, pressing his head into the headrest, blindly searching the darkness.

"Well, okay," Jack muttered, reaching across Daniel to grab hold of his seat belt. "Your gonna have to�um. I�ll do it," he said, lifting Daniel�s left arm in order to click the belt in. He gave the shoulder harness a good yank and shrugged. "Good enough, I guess."

Daniel�s face turned to the side window, and sporadic bursts of air clouded the cold glass. His head drooped, too heavy to hold up, and he rested his cheek against the cold glass, squeezed his eyes shut and tried to tune everything out again. Tune out Jack, the relentless throbbing ache in his right hand, the churning in his stomach, the scattered, confused images rambling in his head. Everything. The rain drummed a distant staccato on the roof of the truck, so he listened to that strangely soothing sound again. That was better. All he had to do was listen to that sound, and it would make everything go away again.

"Daniel," Jack said, grasping hold of his friend�s shoulder. When there was no response, Jack touched the back of Daniel�s head, grimaced and started the truck. Somehow he knew the rest of the night would be as silent as forming ice.

For the most part, it was. Jack drove home in the quiet of the despairing night, helped Daniel out of the truck and into the house, and sat him down on the edge of the bed. Without saying a word, because there was no need and because Daniel�s eyes were heavy with exhaustion, Jack pulled the sweater, wet and ripe with perspired alcohol, over Daniel�s head, followed by a stained and damp t-shirt. Daniel sat slumped over, his hands draped between his knees. Occasionally, one hand would reach up and clumsily rub at closed, swollen eyes. Every few moments, a tear would drip onto his hands, and he'd slowly rub the moisture into his damp jeans. Jack yanked off Daniel�s shoes, stripped off his socks, and examined the broken hand, the inflammation extending up Daniel�s wrist. Jack sucked in a breath between his teeth, knowing that Daniel would surely feel it in the morning.

But not now. Now, Daniel felt nothing. Now, Daniel was exhausted, empty, a shell hardly able to maintain form. His mind at last void of images and self-incriminations. His soul quieted, Daniel drifted away from pain and away from that place where all hope was ripped away. Finally, a reprieve from the sober hours when it was the darkest, when there were only two questions: why, and where�s my drink?

Jack paused for a moment to scratch his ear and wonder how one asked another man who happened to be sitting on his bed to remove his pants, but realized Daniel was far too drunk to do it and more than likely wouldn�t remember if Jack just took the initiative and did it himself. So, with one gentle shove, Daniel fell backwards onto the bed, and Jack swiftly removed the sodden jeans. He watched Daniel�s expression�one moment flaccid, mouth slack, eyes languishing under the weight of Scotch, and the next screwing up as if tears were painfully surfacing, only to be washed away with a deep breath and a groan.

"Daniel," Jack said, taking hold of Daniel�s good hand, "sit up. Here we go." He pulled Daniel to a slouch, naked and cold, and then to his feet, and into the bathroom.

"Not that I don�t love this whole bonding experience, Daniel, but you stink." With Daniel�s arm draped over his shoulder, Jack reached into the shower, as much to hold his head away from Daniel�s pungent aroma as to turn on the water. Daniel was his friend, probably one of the best friends he had ever had, but even so there was no way Jack was going to let his friend sleep between relatively clean sheets smelling as badly as he did. Friendship extended great bounds, but where body odor, stale alcohol and grime were concerned, Jack had his limits.

When the water warmed enough, Jack eased Daniel into the shower, propped him up against the wall, under the showerhead, and let fly a few expletives when Daniel began to slide down the wall. Jack felt fairly certain he�d be able to explain away Daniel�s broken hand, but there was no way he�d be able to explain a closed-head injury received while taking a shower at Jack�s house. Jack aided Daniel�s descent to the shower floor, cussing under his breath the entire way while his clothes were soaked through to the skin and his back spasmed under the weight of maintaining his own balance as well as Daniel�s.

Daniel tented his knees, his hands slung across the back of his neck, while the water rained down across his body. If tears slid across his face, they were caught up in the river of warmth pouring over his head.

For fifteen minutes Jack let Daniel wallow under the constant stream. For fifteen minutes the colonel sat on the closed seat of the commode, listening to the muffled sobs, the whispered name of a woman lost to the desert sand. Fifteen minutes, until the only sound coming from the shower was the softly pelting water, and the only movement was the listless crawl of the steam rising above.

"Daniel?" Jack said from his perch next to the sink. "Daniel, you done?" He slid open one half of the glass door and found Daniel leaning against the wet tile, soundly asleep. Jack turned off the water and appraised the situation: one hundred and eighty pounds of drunkenness lumped on the bottom of his shower, and one fifty-year old back to lift it out. Jack brushed a hand across his jowl and considered his possibilities.

"Something tells me you�ve slept in worse places," he muttered, removing the glass doors, one at a time. "See, the beauty of this plan, Daniel," Jack said, stepping to the linen closet where he took out four towels, two pillows and a blanket, "is that if you should feel like puking, all I have to do is hose you down." Jack dropped the pillows and blanket on the ground, set three of the towels on the sink, and used the other to dry Daniel�s hair. For his part, Daniel obliged, only once opening his eyes.

"Sorry. The Air Force forgot to issue me a new hair dryer," Jack told him, working the towel down Daniel�s limp arms and back. Using the same towel, Jack dried the tub floor under Daniel�s acquiescent body. When that towel was thoroughly damp, Jack grabbed a second towel, laid it out, and propped the two pillows at the end of the tub. "Here we go, sleeping beauty," Jack said, lowering Daniel�s head and right shoulder onto the dry towel and pillows. He positioned Daniel�s swollen hand on top of his left arm, and then went about the inauspicious task of towel-drying his friend�s lower half.

"I swear to God, Daniel, if you even twitch while I�m doing this," Jack warned his unconscious friend. Grimacing, Jack ran the towel over Daniel�s legs, his hips, and, with a flurry of expletives, across his groin. Lifting one dead-weight leg at a time, Jack dried the tub and shoved the last towel under Daniel�s hip. With one final flourish, Jack threw the used towel onto the first towel, unfurled the wool blanket, and said a prayer that Daniel was allergic to wool. And then he took it back. With his luck, Daniel would go into anaphylactic shock over an allergy to wool, and that would leave Jack in the brigade with his only defense being, "How was I supposed to know he was allergic to lanolin?"

"Some day, Daniel, I don�t know when, but some day you�re going to make this all right by me," Jack said, tucking the blanket around Daniel�s sleeping body, leaving his broken hand out.

Taking one more glance at his resting friend before going to the kitchen for a bag of ice, Jack said, "If the fight didn�t leave you sore, this will."

Jack scuffed his way into the kitchen, massaging the rigid cables in his back. He grabbed a Ziploc bag and filled it with ice, then grabbed a beer, and returned to the bathroom. Passing the medicine cabinet, Jack sought out and found an old Ace bandage. He knelt down next to the tub, yanked the washcloth from the towel bar in the shower, placed it over Daniel�s hand.

"Any other time I�d warn you that this was gonna hurt, but I�m thinkin� you won�t exactly feel this, so�" Jack positioned the ice bag on Daniel�s hand, and wrapped the two with the elastic bandage. Satisfied with his work and the fact that the injured area was receiving much needed ice, Jack sat back against the wall and opened his beer.

"Danny, Danny, Danny." Jack rubbed his tired eyes, the bottle of beer cantilevered over his knee. "What the hell�s going on with you?"

*****

Jack hit the send button on his phone, leaned up against his kitchen counter and kind of hoped he�d reach one of the nurses. Then he could leave a message. Then he wouldn�t have to answer any questions. Then he could scuttle away from the phone like it was a bomb waiting to go off.

"Colonel?" Janet Fraiser said, lifting the phone.

"Shit," Jack muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"Hey, Doc! How ya doin�?" Jack crowed, pinching the bridge of his nose, knowing full well that the SGC�s CMO was going to rip him a new one for this latest exploit. And then Jack would rip one for Daniel�

"I�m fine, sir, thank you for asking," came the answer, oozing with incredulity. "What can I do for you, Colonel?"

Jack waffled for a moment, shifting his weight from one foot to the next, and then, in a gust of expelled air, said, "Okay, I know the routine is to deny that I need anything, but I didn�t get enough sleep last night to follow the script, so here�s the thing: Do you still have privileges at Cedar Springs Hospital in town?"

"Yes. Why?"

Jack could just picture her�arms folded across her white lab coat, her lips pursed, her stare icy under a gathered brow. "Well, as it turns out, I found a certain friend of ours last night, and in his present condition I don�t think bringing him to the infirmary would be such a good idea."

"How bad is it?"

"Busted hand. Maybe a cracked jaw. The good news is his liver has been cleaned and sterilized."

There was a silence on the other end, and Jack felt his head begin to pound. He held the phone away from his ear and pinched shut his eyes, waiting for the barrage. When there was nothing but quiet, Jack opened one eye and used it to peek at the phone. With great reservations, he brought the phone to his face, and said, "You still there?"

"I�m here," Janet said. "Can you bring him to Cedar Springs by�1300 hours? I can�t get out of here any sooner than that. And God knows what I�m going to tell General Hammond. Colonel, this is-"

"You�re a peach, Doc. In fact, you�re a bushel of peaches. 1300 hours. Perfect! My friend and I will meet you there."

"I could just-"

"Yeah, I know the feeling, Doc. See ya in a bit," Jack said, and slapped shut his phone. One problem solved, ten more to deal with, he thought. But first, a cup of coffee. He grabbed a mug from the shelf, took a few steps to his refrigerator to grab the milk, and returned to the counter. That�s when the shadow of a shuffling image caught his eye. Jack stood very still for a moment while he watched his friend trudge into the kitchen, Daniel�s pride and body bruised and aching. Jack pulled a second mug down, poured hot coffee into both and met Daniel at the table.

Dressed in a pair of Jack�s Air Force sweatpants and a Cub�s t-shirt, Daniel held his right hand closely to his chest, slowly lowered his stiff and aching body into the chair.

Jack placed the cup of coffee in front of Daniel, set his own mug down across from him, and pulled a new Ziploc from the box next to the refrigerator. Filling it with ice, Jack glanced back at Daniel, who sat silent, disheveled, his left hand knotted in his hair.

"How about some toast?" he asked, which was met by a distinct silence. Jack tossed the bag of ice onto the counter with a thunk, slid two pieces of bread into the toaster, and drummed his fingers on the counter. "Toast it is, then."

Jack screwed his lips up and thought about all his own personal "morning afters," when all he wanted was to be left alone until the settings in his brain dialed down�the over-amplified hearing, the acute perception of light, the heightened sense of smell and hearing. Yeah, he had had a few of those mornings, so he gazed out his kitchen window and allowed Daniel a moment to settle himself, take a few sips of coffee. When the bread popped up, toasted and hot, Jack slathered it with butter. He licked his fingers, slid a plate out of the cupboard, and dropped the toast onto it.

"Eat," Jack said, pushing the plate in front of Daniel.

Daniel, his hand pressed into his eye, gave the toast one look and covered both eyes.

"I see you found the clothes I left out for you," said Jack, returning to the counter to grab the bag of ice. "Hope you didn�t mind the sleeping arrangements." Jack took a seat across from Daniel and tossed the bag of ice to him, displacing the plate of toast, which earned him an immediate glower from Daniel.

"It�s for your hand, Cassius," Jack said, lifting his coffee to his mouth.

Daniel tightened his lips, angered by Jack�s impertinence, and only then realized the extent of the injuries to his face. A sizzle of pain arced through his jaw, and he touched his fingers to his lower lip, pulling them away to find a trace of blood.

"You want another bag of ice for your mouth?" Jack asked.

Daniel ran his thumb across his eyelid, his head pounding directly behind. He ground his teeth together, bit back on his nausea, and said, "No."

Jack put his cup down and assessed his friend�probably still drunk, from the look of it, more than likely a couple chipped teeth, only now feeling the incredible pain in his obviously broken hand. It was a pitiful sight, and Jack had to feel sorry for the guy. Had the strangest feeling that he should maybe even sit with Daniel a while and let him pour out his guts to him. But then again�

"I�ve got your day all planned out," Jack said, pushing himself out of his chair to help Daniel put the ice on that hand. When Daniel yanked his shoulder back in protest, the blazing agony that shot through his arm left him breathless. Jack waited a moment, and then gently as possible lowered the bag of ice onto the purple, swollen hand. Daniel winced and moaned. "Leave it there," Jack ordered, his tone brooking no room for argument.

Jack looked back at Daniel, just once, to make sure he was heeding Jack�s order, and then he went on. "In an hour, after you�ve ingested something other than alcohol, we�re going to meet Doc Fraiser at Cedar Springs Hospital, where, under the name of Mike Tyson, you will be admitted and treated for an injury sustained while putting up drywall. Don�t ask. It�s for your benefit, and if the staff at Cedar Springs thinks you�re perhaps the worst home renovation guy in all of Colorado, then so be it. That�s better than what they�d say if I carted your drunken carcass into the base," Jack said, his voice leaning toward anger. He didn�t want to be angry, but Daniel had placed himself in a very dangerous position. Very dangerous. Jack raked his hand through his hair and started again. "Going on. After your hand is placed in a good, solid, uncomfortable cast and your lip is sewn up, we�re coming back here, where you have a choice: you can take a long nap and then explain what�s going on in that head of yours, or you can straight away tell me what�s going on in that head of yours."

Daniel ripped at the hair on the back of his head, his anger in equal proportion with his shame. "It�s none of your business."

"Oh, you made it my business when you called me collect in the middle of the night to pick up your sorry ass," Jack told him, leaning across the table. "And by the way, have ya heard of 1-800-Dial ATT?"

Daniel�s eyes flew open and stared at Jack, his mouth trembling, incoherence driving his expression.

"Kind of forgot that part, huh?" Jack asked, softening his tone. Jack knew what it was like to wake up in an unfamiliar place, woozy from the night before, trying desperately to pry any recollection of the night�s activities from his acrid and foaming memory. He thought Daniel was smarter than that. At least he hoped Daniel was. "How ya feelin� now?"

"I�m fine," Daniel muttered, resting his forehead in his hand.

"Yeah, you look it. How do you think the other guy feels?"

Daniel glanced up, let Jack�s question fully hit him, and then lifted his head completely. "What?"

"You were in a fight, Daniel," Jack said. "You don�t remember?"

Daniel shook his head, pain and fear washing over him. He could remember bits of pieces of the night before, like shattered reflections in a broken mirror. If he tried to piece those remnants together, he knew it would be too much for him to take in, so he didn't try. He set his mouth in a tight line, and winced at the nearly forgotten sting in his lip. Rubbing his hand gingerly over his eyes, so he wouldn't have to look at Jack, he said, "It�s all a little�vague."

"Can�t think why. Why do you think that is, Daniel?" Jack questioned, taunting the man across the table. "Ah, but wait. I�m getting ahead of myself. The Q&A section of our day doesn�t come until later. So many things to ask. I can hardly wait. The suspense is killing me."

"Don�t you think you�re laying on the sarcasm a little thick, Jack?" Daniel asked, glaring at the man across the table.

"Probably. Definitely. But, see, by laying on the sarcasm I refrain from laying into you, Daniel. And again, I�m getting ahead of myself. All in good time, my friend. All in good time."

But Daniel was finished answering questions. His own mind swirled with half-materialized memories, hazy images and scatterings of conversations. What was more, he cursed his drunken self for having called Jack. God, if he�d just held it together, just�reached that magic number of drinks and then stopped, he wouldn�t be in Jack�s dining room, having to answer for his behavior.

Daniel knew he'd been doing a pretty good impression of someone coping relatively well under the circumstances, and here he'd blown it with one stupid phone call, one pathetic moment of weakness. Fine, if Jack wanted to talk about it, they would. When Daniel could think clearly again, that is, and then he could convince Jack that the previous night had merely been a momentary lapse of judgment. After all, no one could blame a guy for losing it a little after everything that had happened. If anyone could understand that, it would be Jack.

That was it�he�d play on Jack�s sympathies.

And then he resolved to be more careful. He had enough sense to know that Jack�s sympathies would only work for so long.

He�d just have to be more careful from now on, that�s all.

*****

Jack waited in the living room, surfing through the channels, while Daniel readied himself for their trip to the hospital. Ten minutes went by, and Jack found himself mildly involved in a show on deer rutting. Mildly. Fifteen minutes went by, and Jack found himself completely involved in Daffy Duck�s rendition of Robin Hood, complete with every "Ha, ho, hee, thrust, parry�"

When Daniel slogged into the room, his hand throbbing, his mouth spiking with pain, Jack didn�t see him, but instead recited along with Daffy, "Actually, it�s my buck and a quarter staff, but I�m not tellin� him." It annoyed Daniel to no end that Jack found humor in such insipidness, especially when he had made such a production out of their proposed schedule. Daniel had a moment to put together an escape route, but just when he had added the final leg of his journey to freedom, Jack mumbled something about, "If you can�t fight �em, join �em." Daniel shifted his weight onto his back foot and glowered at Jack.

"You ready?" Jack asked, jumping from his seat and clicking off the TV.

Daniel didn�t answer him, nor felt any compunction in the least about completely ignoring Jack. He pivoted, marched toward the door, and realized he had no idea where his coat might be.

And Jack knew it. It wasn�t that he wanted to watch Daniel squirm, not entirely. It was that he wanted Daniel to understand the magnitude of how stupid he had been the night before. Being able to stand by while Daniel fought a battle of wills of whether or not to ask Jack where his coat was turned out to be the lagniappe that made the day all the better.

Daniel ran his tongue across his lip, the split held together by a butterfly bandage he had allowed Jack to place there, but only after a terse moment. Just another thing he had had to ask Jack to do for him, and he hated to be beholden to Jack. Daniel shook his head, angry beyond words that he had to, yet again, ask Jack for something else--to give him his coat. And when he did get his coat back, he hoped to God his glasses would be in the pocket.

"Well, this has been fun," Jack finally said, reaching into his hallway closet, "but we have an appointment, and you know how Fraiser gets when you keep her waiting." He handed Daniel a down parka.

"That�s not my coat," Daniel told him, refusing to make eye contact.

"You�re right, but your coat and all your clothes are flammable and therefore soaking in the utility sink in my basement." Jack thrust the parka into Daniel�s good hand and stepped past him. "Put it on. Let�s go."

Those were the last words spoken for 28.5 miles.

Janet Fraiser was waiting in the emergency room entrance when they arrived, looking proper and pissed in scrubs and a white lab coat. She sipped her coffee in an adjacent bay while Daniel was given the standard physical assessment in triage and answered the obligatory questions in patient registration. When his pseudonym and his false report of his injuries were logged into the computer, Janet took his paperwork, gave him a quick once-over, and told Jack he could wait down the hall, and that she would keep him informed.

Happy to oblige and hoping to find a TV in the waiting room, Jack sauntered off.

It was the first time in weeks that Daniel wished Jack would have stayed.

"So, Daniel," Janet crooned, striding through the twisted hallway, "want to fill me in?"

"I broke my hand," Daniel told her, following a full stride behind the physician.

"And the laceration to your lip?" she asked, flipping his chart, skimming his vital signs.

"Yeah, there�s that, too," was all he was willing to offer.

She pulled into a room, didn�t look to see if Daniel had followed her in, sat on the swivel stool, and said, "You know the routine."

He did. He removed the parka, with slow, deliberate precision, and then climbed onto the white examination table and waited for the accusations and questions to begin.

But there were none, other than, "Does it hurt when I do this?" and "Any sensitivity to cold or hot?" He was almost relieved. Maybe she didn�t know the truth. Maybe she respected his privacy.

When the nurse arrived, Janet rolled out the assorted orders, including X-rays to his arm and jaw, and then she left him, telling him she�d be back when the films were developed.

"Why don�t you get some rest while you wait to go down to radiology?" she said, patting his shoulder, and just as calmly, she left.

Once outside Daniel�s room, Janet ripped off her gloves, slammed them into the bio-waste container, and went in search of Jack O�Neill. She had questions. Boy, did she have questions.

"It doesn�t work," Jack informed his fellow waiting room dwellers, pointing to the Revco Food Dehydrator. "And the return policy sucks."

"Ahem," Janet voiced at the door.

Jack stepped out into the hall where Janet had gone, and said, "So?"

"He�s drunk," she announced, twining her arms across her chest.

"Yeah, I kinda noticed that," Jack said. "You should have seen him ten hours ago. How is he otherwise?"

"His hand is broken, and I put two stitches in his lip. He�s going to need to see his dentist because I think he has a cracked tooth," she said, leaning her shoulder into the wall.

"So, his hand: it is broken," Jack said, wincing.

"My guess is it�s broken in three places." She let out a heavy sigh and silently her aggravation with Daniel. "Colonel, if he�s drunk I can�t properly sedate him in order to set his hand."

"So, what? If he�s that drunk, he won�t feel it, right?" he said, not seeing the problem. "Serves him right, anyhow. When he called, I was having this amazing dream about�"

"I�m sure I don�t need to hear the rest of his story," she said, placing her hand up between them, hoping to halt the progress of his tale. "His blood alcohol is twice the legal limit. If his last drink was ten hours ago, the amount of alcohol he ingested is staggering. Now would be a very good time to tell me what the hell happened."

"All I know is there was a fight. Daniel called me up�collect, by the way�pretty much your cliché drunk, saying something about how the other guy didn�t know he could fight. It was fairly pathetic." Jack smirked and tossed his hand up near his face. "That�s all the information I have. I had a couple buddies check the police records from last night and this morning in case Daniel�s sparring partner filed a report, but so far it�s clean."

"I think there are bigger issues here than we know," she said, rubbing her eyes.

"Yeah, I think so, too," Jack agreed. "Like my phone bill next month. You think I can expense report that? Maybe it�s tax deductible."

Janet rolled her eyes and disregarded his divergent train of thought. "Look, I�m going to give him some light analgesics. I don�t want him driving, though. Hell, he shouldn�t have been drinking given his neurological trauma from the�you know," she said, glancing furtively around the hall. "I�m placing him in your care, Colonel. At least for the next twenty-four hours."

"Yeah, well, that�s what I figured." Jack stroked his hand across his neck, sore from sitting in the bathroom most of the night, making sure Daniel kept breathing.

"Okay, then. I�m going to check on his lab reports. I�ll call you when we�re done," she said, giving his elbow a gentle squeeze.

"Hey, Doc, we�re going to keep this on the QT, right?" Jack said, reaching out to place his warm hand on her shoulder.

Janet sighed and said, "No one will ever know Mike Tyson was here."

"I-"

"Don�t say you owe me, because your tab is miles long," she told him in her wake.

Jack nodded his head, and wondered if maybe she�d like The Amazing Pasta Pot in a show of his appreciation.

*****

"Thanks, Doc," Jack said, folding the discharge papers in half and then half again.

"You�re welcome," Janet said. She pressed her hands into her lab coat and gave Daniel one last visual assessment. "You�ll call your dentist, right?"

Daniel nodded and pulled the parka onto his shoulder. When Jack started to help him, Daniel yanked the coat out of Jack�s grip. The colonel threw his hands up in the air and took two steps back, sharing a knowing look with Janet.

"Daniel," she said, crossing her arms, leveling him with her eyes, "I want you to call me if you have any discomfort. The analgesic I prescribed isn�t very strong, but because of your head trauma, I can�t give you anything stronger. However, I can change the prescription, but only if you call me." She waited for his response, any response. When he remained steadfastly silent, she shifted her weight onto one leg and glared at him. "Did you hear me?"

"Yes," he all but whispered, casting his attention to his shoes.

"Okay, but do you understand?" she said.

Daniel slid his good arm through his sleeve and fought back the urge to tell Janet to go to hell. Instead, he simply said, "I suppose," and fought to pull the second half of the coat onto his shoulder, cloaking his hand, cocooned within a sling.

"He�ll call," Jack said, reaching for the door.

"I hope so." Janet handed Daniel three packets of sample drugs, gathered up his chart, and patted Jack�s arm when she passed to leave the room.

Jack held the door open, waiting for Daniel to finish pulling on his coat. Without acknowledging Jack, Daniel slid by him and out the door, down the corridor. He punched the automatic door opener on the wall, hardly slowing his pace to wait for the doors to completely open. Once outside in the cold afternoon air, Daniel hunched his shoulders up around ears and tramped to Jack�s truck.

Jack followed behind him in annoyed silence, hitting the unlock button on his remote. He watched Daniel jerk open the passenger door and pile into the truck, protecting his injured hand all the while.

Jack paused before getting into the truck, taking a moment to center himself, to rein in his anger and frustrations with Daniel. His concern. Jack took a moment to decide how he wanted to begin a conversation with Daniel, and found that he hadn�t a clue, so he scratched his jowl, clucked his tongue against his cheek and raised an empty hand to the unasked and unanswerable question. Then he joined Daniel in the quiet truck.

Jack stuck the key in the ignition, started the truck and reminded Daniel to put on his seatbelt. He put the truck in reverse and tried not to let on that he knew Daniel was having trouble clicking in his seatbelt with only his left hand. If Daniel wasn�t going to ask for help, well, Jack wasn�t going to offer.

Once on the road, with a good forty minutes to kill before returning to Jack�s, the strained silence that thickened the air inside the cab began to grate on Jack�s nerves. He propped his elbow up on the door, ran his nails across his scalp, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, made obnoxious popping noises with his lips, and yet Daniel remained absolutely still.

Resolutely motionless. Stationary in the face of Jack and Janet�s effrontery. Daniel�s focus never left the horizon, his lips never twitched past their tight line. And even though his stomach growled and his skull pounded, his expression never once let on that he was anything but pissed off. It was easier that way.

"Let me ask you something," Jack said, disrupting the awful silence. "Your little sortie into drunken debauchery--was that a one-time deal, or is that how you�ve been spending your time the last couple weeks?" Daniel shifted his steely gaze out the corner of his eye. Years of military life had taught Jack that silence was, in fact, implicit confirmation of a question. The pallor of Daniel�s skin�ruddy, unkempt�was explicit confirmation of its own. Jack jutted forth his lower jaw and nodded his head, keeping perfunctory attention to the road ahead.

Trees passed. Mile markers sailed by. All Daniel could see, however, was the brilliant heat of his anger�anger at being held prisoner by Jack; at being disallowed to go back to his apartment; at being injured once again. White-hot anger, boiling his blood, searing his vision, crisping the edges of his nerves. He wanted out�out of the truck, out of his life, out of it all. He wanted to be left alone to�to�to have a drink. Six, if he wanted them. Nine, if he needed them. More, if he could stay conscious long enough. He found the words "I could use a drink" creeping up the back of his throat, perched right on his lips, pressing themselves forward, but he knew better than to let them escape. No, his captivity would end soon enough, and then he would find his peace, his sanctuary. Soon enough.

"Ya know, I had a buddy in basic training," Jack said, seemingly out of the blue. In defiance, Daniel turned to stare out the side window. "Good guy. Tough as nails. The kind you�d want in a bar fight, not that you�d want to get into a bar fight. Not another bar fight, that is." Jack shot Daniel a look and found him giving the international sign for "I�m not listening." "One day there was a fire in the barracks. My buddy was caught in it and was burned over 70% of his body. Awful stuff. Anyhow, when they got him to the hospital the doctors decided to put him in a drug-induced coma for the first couple weeks, just to get him by the worst of it. I�m sure there were other medical reasons, but they�re beyond me. So, two, three weeks later, they wake him up, tell him what happened. Don�t get me wrong�there was still a lot of pain, but no where near the pain that he would have felt had he been awake." And then Jack stopped, switched hands on the wheel and searched his console for a pack of gum, a sort of fishing expedition for Daniel�s attention, which worked.

"Is there a point to your story?" Daniel growled, refusing to change his position. The muscles in Daniel�s cheeks began to jump, his eyes darted from one spot to another, never seeing anything but rancor.

"Yes, Daniel, there is, and thank you for asking," Jack said, whisking his hand through the air. "I think you�re trying to drink yourself past these first couple weeks. I think that you think if you stay drunk, you�ll get over that hump of the really bad pain. Tell me if I�m wrong."

Daniel flinched at Jack�s words and hoped to God Jack hadn�t noticed. And then he forced himself to become very still. His previous nervous motions halted, frozen, except for his hands. Uncooperative, the swollen fingers protruding from the end of the cast twitched; his unharmed hand, clutching the cuff of his coat, trembled. Jack caught a glimpse of the activity and then a glimpse of the explosive stillness in Daniel�s face. Aware of Jack�s scrutiny, Daniel fanned his fingers, trying to interject with a wave a feigned insouciance in an otherwise troublesome conversation. He knew his eyes were wide, snapping open and shut, and that their quick movements betrayed him when under duress, so he turned away. He�d be damned if he was going to let Jack see his overly-bright eyes, nor the rim of unshed tears held tenuously behind his lashes.

"Well?" Jack asked. "Any comments, criticisms, reaction, repudiations?"

Those words, spoken insolently, with derision, rekindled Daniel�s anger, for which he was thankful. Anger was easier than the blackness of sorrow. Anger was something he could manage�and in fact, it was his anger that gave him any sense of being. Through his clenched teeth, Daniel demanded, "Shut up."

"Shut up?" Jack said, glancing sidelong at Daniel. "What? Shut up? No, �Once again, you�re wrong, Jack�? No verbal lashing? Frankly, Daniel, I�m disappointed. Shut up?"

It was also his anger that robbed him of the ability to communicate effectively. He gnawed at his lower lip, wincing at the pain of the freshly sutured skin, wrapped his good arm around his injured hand, and could do nothing more than shake his head back and forth.

"Elucidate me�what have you been doing these last two weeks?" Jack asked, furthering the chasm between them. "Because I�m getting the distinct feeling it hasn�t been volunteer work."

Daniel�s knee popped up and down, his broken hand throbbed inside the cast. He shook his head, communicating, if only to himself, that he wasn�t going to play along. That he was finished with the cat and mouse game. That Jack had no right, not one damn right to ask him these questions, and he�d be damned if he was going to answer them, even if he could find the words.

"It won�t work, you know," Jack continued, softening his voice and the sarcasm. "You can�t mask the pain of losing somebody you love."

"You don�t even know what you�re talking about," Daniel spat out, pressing his shaking palm to his eye.

Jack gawked at Daniel, and said, "Oh, really? Why don�t we take a ride in the Way, Way Back Machine and revisit my past, a past of which you are a part, shall we?" Daniel slapped his hand into his lap and slouched in the seat, closing his eyes and his attention to Jack�s speech. "It begins with the Three Big Ds�death, despair, drunkenness. Are ya beginning to see the similarities?"

"Yes, fine. You know me better than I know myself," Daniel stated, each quick word trilling with bitterness and sarcasm. "Are you finished?"

"Oh, I haven�t even begun." Jack�s lips curled sourly at the corners, taunting Daniel, he hoped, into an argument.

"Well, save it."

"For what?"

"You said yourself, when we got back from the hospital I could choose whether I wanted to talk, or whether I wanted to take a nap. I want to take a nap. In my own apartment, by the way, if you don�t mind," Daniel snapped back.

"Okay, wait. Hold on while I sort out all these requests," Jack said, touching his brow, and when he felt the patronizing tone of his voice had completely taken affect, he went on, one finger in the air to highlight each statement. "Yes, we can save it. Yes, you can take a nap. No, you can�t go back to your apartment. Yes, I mind."

"You�re a prick," Daniel growled.

"Isn�t it funny? Of all the languages you speak, the one that just doesn�t sound right coming out of your mouth is profanity." Jack waited for Daniel to respond in kind, but his bravado only served to make Daniel shut down further. Jack pinched shut one eye, regretting that he�d let the conversation steer off in the wrong direction. He had wanted to chastise Daniel, but also to show he cared�all that "tough love" crap. He had wanted Daniel to be moved by his sensitive insights. Jack thought they were fairly effective.

But sometimes it was just too damn hard to figure out what was actually going on in Daniel�s flaky head. He had tried sarcasm to roust him. Nothing. Anger. Even less. Jack had tried compassion. Crimony, he had bathed the man! Something had to give.

"Look, Daniel," he began, and when he tried to gain Daniel�s attention, he saw, perhaps for the first time, the depths of Daniel�s sorrow, etched into every line and sunken hollow in his face. He looked defeated, desperate and exhausted. Jack cleared his throat and wondered if he�d ever be able to get through to him.

Maybe his words were like salt in a wound. Maybe Daniel�s wound was stinging enough, and maybe salty barbs only kept it from healing.

They drove the remaining miles in heavy silence.

*****

Jack unlocked the front door and let Daniel glide by, mouthing a "you�re welcome" in his wake. He threw down his keys on the hallway credenza, stripped off his leather jacket, hung it in the closet, and stood passively by while Daniel struggled to remove his coat. Once off and dangling in his left hand, Daniel stopped in front of Jack, waiting for him to step aside so he could hang up the coat.

"Yes, Daniel?" Jack said, tormenting Daniel.

Daniel�s eyes flickered, and keeping his tone flat yet unconditionally angry, he said, "Would you please move?"

Jack sighed, moved out of the way, and said, "I suppose." He ambled toward the kitchen, tiring of the game, but not so much as to want to change any of the rules.

"Fraiser said you�re supposed to take another one of those horse pills soon, so let me get some water for you," Jack called back, but Daniel once again let it go without a response. Jack filled a glass with water and brought it back to the hallway, where Daniel labored to hang up the coat using only one hand.

"You know, I�d offer to help, but�" Jack set the glass on the hallway credenza, leaned one hand into the wall, and crossed his ankles. "This is more entertainment than I�ve had in a month."

Daniel rattled off a list of expletives, all in the privacy of his mind, and furiously maintained his focus on hanging up the cumbersome jacket.

"I brought you out some water. You remember water. It�s that stuff you mix with whiskey," Jack said, teasing Daniel with his carefully crafted expression of words and disdain�slatted eyes and a tight smile.

Once on the hanger, Daniel smacked the hook onto the clothes rod, slammed the door behind him, and met Jack�s eyes for a brief, bellicose moment before tramping away.

"Something I said?" Jack asked, allowing Daniel to pass, his head shaking in feigned confusion. "Woe, is me. Well, there�s only one thing to do when one offends another in such an ungentlemanly way," Jack pushed himself off of the wall and rounded to the kitchen, "and that is eat." He yanked open the refrigerator, grabbed a beer, and perused the shelves for anything edible.

"Daniel," he called after having taken a swig, "I�m gonna make some food. What sounds-"

The crack of the guest bedroom door slamming brought the subject to a close. Jack took another swallow of his beer, clucked his tongue against his cheek, and swung the refrigerator door shut. "And I was going to make omelets. His loss."

The sound of Jack rustling in the kitchen drifted through the closed door and into the room. Daniel didn�t hear it. All he could hear was a pitiful cry deep within him. He sank to the edge of the bed, spent and staring into the void of loss and nothingness. It was that loss and the subsequent vanquished hope that had annihilated him, that buried him all these weeks later. It was the suddenness that had left him unprepared and in shock.

It was the pain, so encompassing it could not be breeched, so overwhelming it suffocated all other sensations. It was the wordless, formless void, the silence that bubbled up inside him, pushing through his gut, overtaking his lungs, his breath, his throat. It was that inexpressible grief, that churning, foaming cauldron of acid edging into his mouth that choked him, that, once out, would surely dissolve every ounce of him.

It needed to be extinguished. He needed to take away the burn, douse the searing pain. Nothing good could come of letting it run its course. No, stifle it. Take away its power.

But how?

His skin pinched, his blood ran like nails through his veins. His shoulders gathered, strained and ached around his neck. He suffered the agony of twisting his neck through the hard musculature, to no avail.

"I gotta get out of here," he said, hoisting himself off the bed. Snatching his wallet from the dresser where he had tossed it only moments earlier, Daniel bolted to the door.

Then stopped.

He had no car, no money, no glasses�where could he possibly go? If truth be told, he was a little woozy, but that no was different than usual, not these days.

He was woozy, and tired and aching. Hadn�t Jack said it was time to take more drugs? Maybe that would help. He�d probably need two, he thought. The last dose hardly touched the ache. He patted down his pockets trying to remember where he�d put the samples of pills Janet had given him.

"Shit," he muttered, remembering they were in the coat, Jack�s coat, in the closet. Which meant he�d have to go into the common area of the house. Which meant he�d have to see Jack. Nope. He�d rather sit in the darkened room and deal with his misery than subject himself to another kind of misery.

And so he lowered his teetering body to the bed once again, one hand behind him to steady himself, the other held to his chest inside the sling.

"No," he firmly stated, straightening himself, his expression grave. "I can do this." He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and nodded in agreement with himself. "I can do this. I don�t have to have a, uh�No, I can�I�m okay."

God, he felt sick. He catalogued his bodily afflictions�nausea, exhaustion, hand and a lip that throbbed in unison. His head, Christ, his head wouldn�t stop spinning, and even if it did it wouldn�t stop pounding.

But it was the sickening, clawing panic commandeering his gut that gave him the worst of it. He tried to swallow against it, as if it were bile swept up through his gastric system. He tried to breathe deeply, quash it with extra oxygen. Perhaps if he released a small amount, just one small morsel of the grief, the tension would be somehow released, like a pressure valve on an overheating boiler. Just one small sob. It was there waiting at the back of his throat, anyhow. Let it out. His brow knit, his mouth trembled. Tears quickly rose. His lips parted, and something of a groan escaped before he froze.

An image of a fractured urn, cracked and held entirely together by the arid soil surrounding it, lit in his mind. Remove it, and it shatters. The cracks and pieces themselves bound by tension. Even the smallest movement would disrupt the precarious unity, even though damaged. Even though it was useless, destroyed beyond repair, it was still whole, and for all intents and purposes it was recognizable.

The sarcophagus of dirt, of loam was its only salvation. Take it out of its miserable surroundings and it was lost.

Allow himself the indulgence of releasing his burdensome guilt, and Daniel knew he�d be no more.

He threw his body back onto the bed and concentrated on the physical pain, the newest, sharpest sting, easy to access. He wished it to be so intense it would subjugate the other ache, his constant inner ache. That wound, like a crack of a bat on an already formed bruised, went on unabated. Its power could never be diminished by anything Daniel tried. It could only be diluted. Even then, it returned. Sometimes more vengeful.

But for those few hours of relief, those drifting hours (days, if he were lucky) in smoky, liquid halcyon, he could breathe and not be reminded of the fissures in his soul. How, he wondered, did the liquid even stay inside his body with all those cracks? Maybe that�s why it took more and more each night. Maybe the scotch, the vodka, the wine�maybe it was seeping out through those cracks.

And maybe it was because there was no scotch, or vodka, or wine to soothe those jagged edges in him. He needed the sharp edges dulled. He needed something.

"Oh, God," he whispered, unaware of the tear trailing over his temple and into his hair. "How did I let this happen?"

Daniel turned his body to the side, frightened and shaking. He choked a handful of blankets in his fist and stared out the window until the white streetlamp burned his eyes. Until more tears formed, some to lap over his stinging eyes, some the helpless reaction to his fear.

"I�m okay. I can do this. I�ll be okay. I�m okay," he whispered to himself, hoping that if he said it enough he�d start to believe it. The mantra had worked in the past. With no other choice than to deal with the agony, the screaming silence, he repeated the lie. "I�m okay. I�m okay�"

In the past he could convince himself of the lie. In the past he knew when it was time to do so, instead of carrying on with another lie�that he drank to fill the time; that he drank just to calm his nerves.

In the past, he could even believe that.

In the past, he�d needed to believe it. Many times.

****

It was so quiet in the house, that in the middle of a sentence in his book, Jack fell asleep. Slumped in the leather chair, his ankles crossed atop the ottoman, Jack drifted off into a sorely needed slumber.

Until the sound of muffled footsteps in the hallway behind him brought his eyes wide open. However, he remained still.

Daniel paused for a brief moment just outside the living room, making sure Jack was still asleep. When Jack didn�t as much as flinch, Daniel moved into the room, squinted his eyes and searched for the phone. He�d call a cab, and by the time Jack woke up, there�d be no time to argue. The last thing he wanted to do was argue with Jack. He didn�t want to talk to anyone. He just wanted to go home, deal with it all there.

He didn�t know when or how he had finally fallen asleep. He supposed it was exhaustion that won over. When he woke up, his hand throbbing inside the cast, he wasn�t exactly sure where he was. He lay still in the guest bed for a short time, until the pain and the familiar dread began to deluge him. That was when he decided to call a cab and get the hell out of Jack�s house.

There, on the side table, was the phone. Daniel slowly reached his hand out and edged the cell phone off the table. It was awkward to go through the motions with only his left hand, but he managed to press in the number for information before he noticed Jack�s face turned toward him.

"Whatcha doin�?" Jack asked.

Daniel dropped his head to his chest and ended his call. "Nothing, apparently."

"I gotta tell ya, Daniel, I�m a little hurt." Jack closed his book and set it on the table next to him. He brushed the sleep from his hair. "I thought we were going to have a nice talk after your nap. You didn�t think I�d forget, did you?"

"One can dream," Daniel said, his attention landing on the slightly yellowed globe next to Jack�s credenza. He touched the continent of Africa on the globe, trailing his finger along the Nile River. When his finger reached the Sudanese border, he started back up the river, to Aswan and over the great dam, to Luxor and Qena, Asyt and El Minya. To Cairo. Cairo�

"Speaking of dreaming, how�d you sleep?" Jack asked, standing and stretching his back.

"Fine."

"Well, good." Jack adjusted the waistline on his khakis and started toward the kitchen. "I have an old pot of coffee just about boiled down to sludge. Interested?"

Daniel turned the globe within its frame and found Colorado, 135 degrees west and an entire lifetime away. "It�s ten o�clock at night, Jack."

"Steak?"

Daniel shook his head, as much to decline the offer as to show his frustration with Jack�s attempt at humor. He found, as he often did with Jack, that the terrain was barren for any humor, made more so by the emptiness in his own spirit. He spun the globe back toward Africa. To Egypt. To another home where he no longer belonged, but would always yearn for. There had been laughter there, once. Laughter and a sense of himself. Of belonging.

He could be there, Egypt, right about now, drenching his cold body in the warmth of the sun, losing himself in the unearthed fragments of some long-forgotten person�s belongings. That�s what he needed�a dig, somewhere away from civilization, a chance to put together the remains of someone else�s life. What he didn�t need was to be standing in a Colorado living room, forced to examine the remains of his own. Sometimes those remains, those artifacts of a life, were too destroyed to make any sense. Better to leave them alone, mark the findings "Misc."

With a flick of his hand, the world spun to the west.

"So�" Jack muttered, bringing in two cups of coffee to the living room. He set both on the coffee table, propped his feet up and waited for Daniel to join him.

Daniel watched the globe spin, watched it slow and finally come to a stop. He tried to swallow against a knot forming in his throat. He blinked his eyes, a nervous habit, and said, "What?"

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Nothing."

"Then it�s going to be a long night." Jack picked up his cup and sipped his coffee, never taking his eyes off of Daniel. "Look, Daniel, here�s the bottom line: You�re here, whether Doc Fraiser ordered it or not. You�re here because I don�t think you�re dealing with losing Sha�re all that well."

"So says Mr. Emotional Awareness."

"Thank you for making my point for me!" Jack cried out. "Surely the subtlety of me being able to see what a mess you are hasn�t been lost on you. You gotta admit that if I can figure it out, you must be pretty bad." Daniel remained stoic, silent and biting with anger. "Daniel, I�ve seen you shot, zatted, your brains fried by the ribbon device, and still, after all that, your game is better than most. But right now, you got no game. And I can�t use you unless you�re prepared to bring your skills to the court."

"I�m sorry I haven�t made myself available for you to use, Jack," Daniel snapped back.

"Oh, stop it." Jack laid his cold stare on Daniel back, wishing he�d somehow retaliate, show a little spirit, defend his honor�something. The pitiful sarcasm was annoying. "You�re pathetic enough right now. Don�t lay maudlin on top of it."

"What�what if I don�t want to get back to work?"

"I�m not all that concerned with what you want."

"So I noticed."

"I�m concerned with what you need."

"And you think you know what I need?" Daniel asked, his chin lifting, rising out of indignation.

"I think you need to get a handle on yourself and shake whatever demons are clawing away at your insides," Jack told him. "I think you need someone to talk to."

"I can take care of myself."

"Yes, because you�ve done such a stellar job of it so far."

Daniel pinched shut his eyes, his irritation with Jack verging toward petulance. He gave it a moment, unlocked his jaw, and said, "Jack, I want to go home."

"What�s so pressing at home, Daniel?" he asked with a skeptical eye on the younger man.

Daniel felt beads of sweat gathering on his upper lip. "Nothing. I just would like to be in my own home, with my own clothes, so I can do what I want."

"And what is it you want to do, Daniel?"

"What are you insinuating, Jack?" Daniel asked, forcing his thumbnail into the equatorial divide.

"Am I insinuating anything, Daniel?"

"This is ridiculous," Daniel sighed, suddenly spinning around, hoping that by facing Jack, it would distract him from the truth. "If you were in my shoes, you�d want to be left alone, too."

"You�re right," Jack agreed, dabbing his finger into his coffee to fish out a floater. "If I had lost someone I loved, I�d probably want to be left alone, too. Oh, wait," he said, pausing, placing his coffee onto the table. "That�s right. I did lose someone." Jack pushed himself off the couch, slid his hands into his pockets, and sauntered over toward Daniel. "One more time for those in the cheap seats, see if these three things jog your memory: a fired side arm, a distinct lack of a DHD, and a nuclear bomb. Anything?"

"That was different," Daniel whispered, feeling Jack�s presence much too close. He shifted away from that presence, his shoulders tensed, his gaze fixed on the globe before him

"How?" Jack kept his focus riveted to Daniel, waiting for an answer, but when all Daniel could muster was a deepening furrow of his brow, Jack answered it for him. "You just want to be left alone. Is that it?"

"Yes."

"I wanted to be left alone so badly that I accepted a suicide mission to Abydos." Jack pressed closer into Daniel�s space, uncomfortably close, and asked, "What mission were you on last night?"

Daniel scowled, knocked his fist against the North Atlantic Ocean and thought he�d call Jack�s bluff, just get the damn thing over.

"Yes, Jack," he began, stepping back, rubbing his aching neck, "I got drunk last night. And yes, I was drunk the night before." He stole a glance at Jack to take in his expression, and just as quickly turned away, veering into the living room. "Last I heard I was of the drinking age."

"How�d the fight start?" Jack asked, shifting his weight to lean against the wall.

Daniel massaged tiny circles across his eyelids, eyes that were sore from lack of sleep and having to go the day without glasses. "I don�t know. Something about a girl in the bar�"

"Hello!" Jack gawked, propelling himself away from the wall and into the middle of the living room. "A girl? In the bar?" he asked, passing Daniel with a look. "Any other night, and I�d want details. Not so much tonight." He waited an uncomfortable moment before taking a seat back on the couch. He added to the discomfort he was piling onto Daniel by staring at him, his head angled, clucking his cheek. "Not that I�m judging, but�what girl, and what bar, and what the hell happened?"

"Nothing happened. I don�t think," Daniel muttered, sneaking a glimpse of Jack to measure his own sense of foreboding against Jack�s reaction. "No, nothing happened. It�s all a little vague, but I was there, she sat down because some idiot was bothering her. The rest is�" He stopped, waved his hand in the air and shook his head.

"Soooo," Jack said, leaning his head back into his woven fingers, "let me make the obvious conclusion here: Said idiot continues to bother said girl. Said archeologist defends said girl and winds up in a fight. Not that a part of me isn�t crying out with pride, Daniel, but what the hell were you thinking?"

"I don�t know," Daniel said, not skirting the issue, but rather disconcerted by the fact. He shuffled his feet, held up his throbbing hand, then lowered it again with a wince. Not looking at Jack, he added in a quiet, subdued voice, "Jack, I appreciate that you came to my assistance and all, but now I just want to go home. Can I please just call a cab and go home?"

"Do you understand the ramifications of your actions last night?" Jack asked, drilling him with cold, sober eyes.

Daniel raised his cast, and said, "I suppose I do."

"So you got a broken paw. Big deal." Daniel felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He was well acquainted with Jack�s studied, controlled anger. But the feel of those black eyes so ruthlessly upon him was unnerving. Jack knew it. "The bigger quandary, the one that really irks me, Daniel, is that now I have a problem. Couple problems, if and when that other drunk goes to the police to file a report."

The inference that he was the primary drunk was not lost on Daniel, nor was the offensive manner in which it was spoken. Daniel bristled.

"It�s my responsibility," he said, seething. "I�ll take care of it."

"No, you won�t. What you�ll do is lay low." Jack was filled with the urge to scream at Daniel, march over to him and slap him, beg the question of him, "What the hell is your problem?" But he didn�t. He pursed his lips and watched the sweat forming on Daniel�s forehead.

"Fine," Daniel croaked out, his wide eyes carefully guarded. "Is that all?"

"Oh, if only it were. See, there�s another fine mess you�ve gotten yourself into, Daniel: If I hadn�t stopped you last night, you were about two seconds away from exposing the entire SGC over an unsecured line. How you gonna take care of that one, Daniel?"

Daniel lowered his eyes, tilted his chin down, and suffered the humiliation of the color washing out of his face. He had no idea what Jack was talking about, but knew enough of his own habit that it was probably true. The cast on his hand, gained from an injury he scarcely remembered, was proof enough that he had been beyond drunk the night before. He was ashamed of himself. Ashamed that he had let it�the drinking, the night�escape his control.

"So, you see, me picking you up last night was partly out of friendship, partly because you called me collect and passed out before you hung up. A thirty minute collect call, Daniel," Jack said, craning to make eye contact with Daniel. "But more importantly, I picked you up in the name of national security." He waited for Daniel to argue with him, to object. But he did nothing. He just stood there and took it, head bowed, every muscle tensed, yet somehow defeated at the same time. Jack wasn�t at all sure any of it was making the impact on Daniel that it should, so rose to join him in the middle of the room. "Is it beginning to dawn on you how bad all this really is? Is it, Daniel?"

From his hunched position and through clenched teeth, Daniel said, "It won�t happen again."

"You bet it won�t, but how can I be sure of that?" Jack asked.

Daniel found the cantankerous strength to stare down Jack, and said, "I guess you�ll just have to trust me."

"Wish I could, Daniel, but after last night, you can imagine I have some concerns." The two men stared into each other's eyes and fought a battle of wills, of prideful, iron-willed intractability.

Daniel sidestepped Jack, escaping anymore of the oppressive physical confrontation. "Then I suppose it�s time for me to resign my position." He said it to spite Jack, but when the words were out, they seemed to have a buoyant truth to them, as if he had said them before and meant it. He found himself halting, turning and, mouth agape, repeating himself. "I�I�I�ll resign. Effective immediately."

Jack glared hard at him. He pressed his jaw to the side and tried to read Daniel�s face, tried to find the "tell" in his eyes. A chill went through Jack when he realized Daniel wasn�t bluffing.

"And do what?" Jack asked, having found the table had turned into a very different game.

Daniel stared back for a brief moment while he thought of his possibilities. Frames of emptiness and roads that ended before they could begin cluttered his mind. His shoulders slouched under the weight of an abandoned and unattainable future.

"I have no idea." Dejected and tired, he dropped to the edge of the coffee table and cradled his head in his hand. "Is that what you wanted to hear, that I�m�adrift? Are you happy now?"

Jack perused the thought in his mind, more for the pregnant pause it offered, hoping to gain a chagrinned look from Daniel. It did. Jack moved to the fireplace and took a seat on the hearth.

"No, Daniel, I�m not happy you�re miserable," he said, wiping the fireplace soot from his hands. "And, contrary to what you�re probably thinking, I�m not trying to make you miserable."

"Then why, Jack?"

"Look, I just want to make sure that you realize there�s a lot at stake, and like it or not, you�re in no position to be indiscrete."

"Yes, Jack, I realize that. Can I go now?"

"No, Daniel," Jack snapped, the line between his eyebrows deepening. "You can�t."

"Why?"

Jack threw his hands up in annoyance, searched the room for anything that might understand his frustration, and said, "Because, national security aside, for the last two weeks you�ve been AWOL, and when I finally find you, you�re a drunken mess with a broken hand, two cracked teeth, and a chip the size of Cheyenne Mountain on your shoulder."

Knowing full well his response was going to come off sounding as anemic as it really was, Daniel said, "I had a bad night."

"Ya think?"

"What do you want me to say? Hmmm? Do�what�" Daniel stammered, stymied by his defensiveness and exhaustion. "Just�what do you want from me? An apology? Fine. I�m sorry. It won�t happen again."

"No, Daniel, I don�t want an apology."

"Then what?!" Daniel bellowed, his dejection swiftly transmuting to incandescent fury.

Jack gave the echo of Daniel�s anger a moment to dissipate, and when he spoke again, it was from a different place in their relationship. It was from that place where he and Daniel had spent many dark hours, many lost and bitter days. It was from a hard-won and strangely intimate friendship.

"Talk to me, Daniel," he quietly said. "Tell me what�s going on."

It was the quality of Jack�s voice that caught him off guard. It was the sudden change in timbre, the sudden compassion that stopped him short. It was hard enough to keep up with the bitter truths being hurled at him. This new show of consideration drained him, and he began to tremble from the sheer exhaustion, from the pretense that was crumbling all around him.

Daniel sighed, let his hands drop into his lap, sighed heavily again. "What�what do you want to know, Jack? Do you want to hear that, yeah, it was pretty bad there for a while, but now I�m fine? That I may have lost my wife, but now, at the very least, I can be comforted by the fact that she�s no longer suffering? Is that it?"

"Daniel-"

"Or, do you want to hear that my life is an abysmal disaster? That every time I close my eyes I see her face? That every time I�" Daniel came to a grinding halt, his words stuck in his throat like barbed wire. "What do you want to hear, Jack?"

"Whatever you want to tell me."

Daniel glared beneath his heavy brow at Jack, his eyes swollen and red. "That�s just it. I don�t want to tell you anything."

"What can I do for you, Daniel?" Jack asked, lacing his fingers together between his knees.

Daniel felt a wholly inappropriate laughter build inside his body, and said, "You can give me back my wife." It didn�t seem all that funny once it was out, and he fought to keep the more realistic sorrow out of his expression. "I guess that�s kind of out of the question, huh?"

Jack�s eyes pinched down, his features softened with heartfelt sadness. "I wish I could."

"Yes, well, see, that�s where I made my first mistake, too," Daniel said, waggling his finger at Jack. "If my life has taught me anything, it�s that wishing and hoping and�and praying are exercises in futility. Doesn�t matter how much�" He drooped, held his broken hand close to his chest, and dug his nails into his scalp. It was all too raw, too jagged and cutting. The pain sliced at his heart, at his throat, at his churning gut. "It doesn�t matter."

"God, Daniel, why didn�t you tell me this? I could have-"

"What, Jack? What could you have done?" he demanded, flipping his head up to stare at Jack.

"Whatever you needed, Daniel," Jack told him, his words and gentle voice meant to soothe Daniel�s troubled mind, not add fuel to a smoldering fire.

"What I need is to go home," Daniel said, raising his tired body from the table. What I need, he thought, is a drink�

Jack watched Daniel draw himself up to a slouch, and Jack saw how full of pain his friend really was. "Anything else, Daniel. Ask me anything else."

"Jack," Daniel cried, lifting his face to the uncaring heavens, unable to control the tremble in his voice, "I just want to go home. I�m tired, and�"

"And, what?"

And I really want a drink, he thought, and hoped the words hadn�t trickled out into the room. He swatted at the air between he and Jack, shook his head, and sniffed. "It doesn�t matter."

"It matters," Jack said.

Daniel slapped his hand against his forehead, trying to grind the tension out of his skull. "Are you going to contradict everything I say?"

"Just the things that don�t make sense," Jack said.

"Then you have a lot of work ahead of you, because nothing makes sense." He returned to the globe, the inaccurate representation of his world, laid out in a perfect sphere, each border delineated, each country carefully tinted. Every city and country he�d ever been to was on the globe. He could practically map out his entire young-adult life on its surface. With each turn he found another part of himself�His grandfather�s Holland, his father�s Boston, his mother�s adopted Peru, his Cairo, his New York, his Chicago, his Colorado Springs. But where was Sha�re? He gnawed at his lower lip, welcoming the pain, swiped his fist under his nose and shook his head. "Nothing makes sense."

"Daniel, sit down," Jack said, sensing the fatigue in Daniel.

"Nothing makes sense, Jack," Daniel said. He could feel his chin trembling, his eyes burning. "It�s just all�nonsense."

"Like what?"

"Like�" Daniel shrugged and flattened his palm against the continent of North America. "Like me. I just don�t make any sense anymore. I�m just�everything I do, everything I say�nonsense."

"Okay, now you�re starting to sound a little whiney," Jack said, pushing himself off the hearth. He walked to the wall in front of Daniel and leaned his shoulder into it.

"I�m obsolete," Daniel argued, daring Jack to disagree with him. "I joined the SGC to find my wife. I found her. My job is done. So what�s next for me? I can�t go back to academia, not after the way I left it. See? Nonsense."

"You know you still have a place in the SGC," Jack reminded him.

"To do what?" Daniel asked, searching the Northwest Territory for some city, some point of interest in order to be distracted. "Translate lost languages? I can give you the name of half a dozen people who could do the same thing."

"Okay, then, what about the kid?" Jack said.

Daniel�s chin dropped to his chest, riddled with a new sense of guilt. "I can�t."

"But you said you promised Sha�re that you�d find it. Him. Wh�whatever," Jack said, rolling his eyes.

"Well, I have a feeling Sha�re is fairly used to me letting her down, so I don�t suppose this will come as any surprise to her when I don�t find the child." He tapped his fisted hand against the globe, found the strength, maybe the need, to look into Jack�s eyes. And when he saw the true and pitiful concern in them, Daniel began to cry. "I�m sorry," he quickly said, turning away, wiping his hand over his face. "I�m sorry. It�s the, uh� I�m sorry."

Jack�s plan was to bring Daniel to some kind of brink, to get him to hash it out, purge his body of whatever it was that was destroying him. Jack thought he needed it. In those first days after Sha�re�s death, they all waited for Daniel to begin the grieving process, to rely on them when he needed a moment or two to collect himself. It never happened. For all intents and purposes, Daniel had continued on with his work as if losing his wife was just part of the natural progression.

Maybe, they had thought, he was dealing with it better than they thought.

Watching his friend fight against his emotions, Jack understood how wrong they all had been. "Daniel-"

Daniel�s tears seized his breath, and yet he attempted to manage his sadness. "Nonsense. All of it."

"Daniel-"

"Jack," Daniel said, closing his burning eyes, empty and listless from the unrelenting weight of his unspeakable grief, "I just want to go home."

"I know, but�no."

"I don�t know what you want from me, Jack," Daniel said, rasping out the words, the choked back sobs halting his words as he tried to pull in air around the tightness in his throat. "I�I don�t have anything to offer that could possibly make you understand."

"Try me," Jack said, the words unbearably soft.

"Jack�" Daniel found his only language to be silent, then. A shake of the head, a twist of the lips. Raised brows, raised shoulders. He sucked in a shuddering breath, tried to offer a word, something to Jack, but his life had been reduced to a parcel of half-finished sentences, unspeakable truths, and a cacophonous void. "I�"

"What?" Jack stepped closer, touched Daniel�s shoulder, and asked again. "What?"

The feel of Jack�s hand, warm and heavy with unwanted kindness, brought Daniel to the edge of his grief. He looked into that empty space and then, afraid of the depths, backed away.

"Don�t," he whispered, pressing one extended finger in the space between him and Jack. Daniel's eyes filled with panic, with cresting tears, and he shook his head, mouth trembling

"Don�t what?" Jack asked, offering his empty hands in question.

"Don�t�um, don�t�just�" Daniel muttered, his blurry vision focused on Jack. "I told you, I don�t know what to say. I mean, even if I could find the words, I wouldn�t know what to say. There�s just�it� none of it means anything."

And Jack supposed Daniel had spoken the truth, finally, cryptic as it was. What Jack hadn�t prepared himself for was the depths of his own sadness for the beleaguered man in front of him. All the other crap�the phone bill, the fight, the slip-of-the-tongue�all of it seemed suddenly frivolous and unimportant. The more Daniel stood apart from him, searching Jack�s eyes for some understanding, the more Jack did understand.

"Daniel," Jack said, inching toward his friend, "Daniel, you�re tired. Why don�t you sit down? That�s all. Just�sit down."

"It won�t help, you know," Daniel told him, finding it more and more difficult to see Jack through his wet eyes.

"What won�t help?"

"Talking about it." Muted clicking noises rose from his throat, escaping anguish being strangled. "They�re only words, and none of them mean anything. I try to make sense of it. Just when I think I understand it, it�the reason, the meaning�it goes away, and I can�t get it back." The dispirited words fell from his mouth, listless and unarranged, wrenching in their cloaked desperation. Daniel wasn�t fully aware that the sounds were even audible. Somewhere in his mind he could hear the words, but they melded with his trampled thoughts, his swirling confusion, until the jumble of thought and voice employed an incompetent interlocutor. "I try, but�it� I can�t hold onto it."

"I know." With a steady hand, the pressure hardly perceptible upon Daniel�s back, Jack guided him to the chair, all the while nodding, agreeing with whatever Daniel was saying. All the while aware that he, too, had been holding back his own sense of bereavement. "I know."

And Daniel sat down, shaking his head, now and again wiping a hand over his mouth and under his nose, surprised and confused by the wetness covering his hand.

Jack took a seat on the corner of the coffee table and just watched Daniel. He offered no words of comfort, no touch of sympathy. He simply watched him. Watched Daniel wrestle with emotions he knew the younger man battled against voicing. He watched Daniel�s shoulders round in on themselves, curl around his slumped head. He watched and listened, somewhat uncomfortable that he was hearing the unmistakable sounds of one man�s private, intimate sufferings. He understood Daniel�s misery, and the more he watched Daniel, the more those memories of loss and pain came back to him. The more they came back to him, the more he felt he needed to�do something.

But what? What had worked for him when Charlie died? Jack filed through the assorted niceties and messages he and Sara had received in those days and weeks following their child�s death. Strange, he couldn�t remember any of them. That time was a blur to him.

What could he offer his friend? Nothing, he supposed. Nothing except time and some peace.

When Daniel seemed to quiet himself, when the trembling in his hand slowed, when the stolen breaths became less labored, he shook his head and smacked his lips together. "God, I hate this."

"Yeah, me, too," Jack voiced back, his empathy running very high.

"This isn�t how I wanted it to happen."

"Wanted what to happen?" Jack asked.

Daniel pulled his eyelid tight over his eye, pausing to let his voice come down from its awful pitch. "I wanted to be more�prepared."

"For what?" Jack asked, incredulously.

Daniel dug his elbow into his knee and grasped a handful of hair in his hand, anchoring his pounding head there. "About a year ago I started thinking I�d never find her again. I guess I thought it was unrealistic to think I�d ever find her." A staccato peal of air poured out of his mouth. Tears fell onto his thighs, wet circles formed on his pant legs. "You know, of all the times I had to be right�"

"So�what?�you thought if you prepared for the possibility, it would be easier if and when it happened?" Jack asked.

Daniel�s chest lifted with one implosive gulp of air. "I didn�t want to be caught�" he tried to explain. "I thought if I prepared myself, it wouldn�t�"

Jack shifted quickly, closer to Daniel, all of the sudden understanding the forlorn misconception in Daniel�s plan. "But you can�t prepare for death, Daniel," Jack said, finishing Daniel�s words. "When death comes, it�s never easy. God, Daniel, of all people, I�d think you�d be the first to realize that."

"I know," he cried. "I just thought this time I�d be able to�handle it better. Accept it, you know?"

"Did you really think that was going to work?"

Daniel washed his hand across his face, pressed his fingertips to his lips. His watery eyes, lashes spiked, met Jack�s after a moment, and all Daniel could do was shrug his shoulders.

"Daniel," Jack whispered, intoning his grief-stricken friend�s name with thick sympathy. Jack pressed his hand across the divide and grasped Daniel�s shaking knee.

"There�s a�there�s a black�hole in my wife�s chest, Jack," Daniel said, laying his hand across that spot on his chest where the soot and blood of a staff blast had ripped through Sha�re. His hand tugged at the woven material, his entire body shook under the sickening memory. "I feel like�like there�s one in me, too. And there�s this�cold wind, and it whistles through me all day long."

"I know," Jack said, commiserating with Daniel�s disconsolate state.

"I don�t know what to do, Jack?" he said, begging for answers. "I wake up, and I�m�empty, and that cold air just�"

Jack never let his eyes leave Daniel�s. He nodded, gently patted Daniel�s knee, and allowed the silence of the room to soften Daniel�s frayed nerves.

And then Jack began to speak. Tentatively, at first. Unsure that what he was saying was at all appropriate. "Daniel," he said, not waiting for a response, "I remember this. I know what�well, I remember what these days are like. I remember what it�s like to be so numb you can�t breathe, but not quite numb enough. I remember."

Daniel crossed his arm over his cast, hooked his hand onto his shoulder and stared at the floor between them, hearing Jack, but only beginning to comprehend his meaning near the end of his sentence.

"There�s nothing I can say to make this better for you, Daniel. Nothing I can say will erase that pain or fill that hole. I believe you have to do that for yourself. But, Daniel," he said, reaching forward to cup the back of Daniel�s head, "what I can do is help you from making a mistake."

Daniel clumsily swiped the back of his hand across his wet cheek, pinched his lips, forced back sobs that insisted on ebbing. When he spoke, his voice came out strained and muffled. "I don�t know what you�re talking about."

Jack rubbed his hand back and forth across Daniel�s tight neck, stalling for time until he could find the right words. "Daniel, do whatever you need to do to grieve the loss of your wife, but promise me you won�t try to get through it by drinking. It won�t work. It won�t fill the emptiness. I know. I�ve seen too many people destroyed by doing that. Right now, I don�t think you really understand how easy it would be to fall into that kind of problem."

Daniel lifted his head and locked eyes with Jack. A hot brand of guilt and shame lanced his gut, and he wanted to tell Jack that he knew all too well how easy it was.

Maybe this was his chance, Daniel thought. Fresh tears slid across his cheeks, propelled by the humiliating truth only he knew. Maybe it would be better if Jack knew. Maybe he had already fallen without a hope of ever bouncing back.

"Jack, I�" he whispered, forcing himself to confide in Jack.

"I know what you�re going to tell me, that it was only a couple days, but look what happened? You can�t possibly think this is a less painful way of dealing with Sha�re�s death." Jack peered into Daniel�s stricken face, heavy tears sneaking over his trembling lips "Promise me, Daniel," he said, stroking the back of Daniel�s head with his thumb. "Promise me it ends here."

And maybe that�s all Daniel needed to hear. Maybe all he needed was to make a promise to Jack, and it would be over. No need to explain further, no need to cover up anything else. No, he�d do it. Maybe he needed to be held accountable to someone other than himself for once. Yes, he�d promise Jack he wouldn�t drink anymore. Maybe this was that sign he always looked for that told him he�d reached his limit. No maybes�this was it. He was done. He�d quit this binge.

Daniel nodded, wiped his sleeve across his face and nodded again. "Okay."

"Good," Jack said, nodding along with him. Maybe it was a good thing Daniel had found out so quickly the potential hazard of drinking, Jack thought, especially for a guy like Daniel who could hardly hold his liquor. "Good."

"I�m sorry, Jack," Daniel sobbed, pressing his quaking hand under his arm. "I don�t know what happened."

"It�s all right. Forget about it," Jack said, rubbing Daniel�s neck again. Remorse was good, Jack thought. Yeah, Daniel would be fine. Their late night talk had gone exactly as Jack had planned. Jack took a certain amount of pride in that.

"I�m sorry," Daniel whispered.

"It�s okay," Jack said.

"I guess�I guess I�m a little tired."

"You look like hell."

"It�s just�It�s all so�"

"It�ll be better in the morning," Jack said. "Why don�t you go back to bed? In the morning I�ll take you home."

Home, Daniel thought. Home to what? After all his protestations, his pleading, would it be wrong to say he didn�t want to go home now? Would it set off further inquiry into his emotional state if he admitted to Jack that he was a little afraid to go back to his empty apartment?

"Come on," Jack said, standing up, patting Daniel on the back. "Go back to bed. I�m exhausted."

A fresh panic bubbled up inside him, but Daniel rose alongside Jack and agreed to return to his bed. Every step he took was one more step toward that time when he�d be alone again with only his thoughts, his grief. He knew he�d made Jack a promise, but the weight of that promise suddenly felt immense. He had to tell him. If Jack expected him to not drink�tomorrow, or the day after that, even�Daniel couldn�t go back to his home, not yet.

"Jack," he began.

"Oh, that�s right. No, I didn�t forget. It�s time for your pain medication," Jack said, sauntering into the kitchen to fetch Daniel�s pills and a glass of water.

While Jack was gone, Daniel thought of how he would tell Jack the truth. Of how he would come out with it. He�d be honest, more honest than he ever wanted to be.

"Here," Jack said, placing the amber container in Daniel�s hand and the glass of water on the table next to him. "You know how many to take. I�ve got to�well, to be honest, I�ve gotta pee. I�ll talk to you later, okay?"

Before Daniel could respond, Jack was loping down the hall.

Daniel looked at the bottle of pills, and he looked down the hall. He looked at the label on the bottle. One every four hours, as needed. One. He looked down the hall. He turned the bottle on its side and shook it until one pill rolled out. And then one more. Daniel righted the small container, scooped up the two pills and tossed them into his mouth. He gulped down a mouthful of water with the pills, closed his eyes, and blindly felt for the small plastic bottle. When his fingertips found it, he reached inside, and with one finger, leveraged out one more pill. He downed that with another mouthful of water.

Maybe now he could keep that promise. Soon. In about twenty minutes he�d be able to stand by his word.

Tomorrow, he would worry about going home. Tomorrow, he would begin again. Not tonight. Tonight, he would leave it all behind.

Daniel slid the pill bottle into his pocket, flicked off the lights, and padded back to his room.

*****

To Chapter 3: 'Scattered Reflections'

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