Author's Notes: Many, many thanks to Dev and Jo who did the alpha/beta thing on this story, and again, taught me a few things along the way. This story has been on my hard drive for awhile and got pulled out and dusted off when a new friend recently lost a loved one. Hankie warning: an average of two out of three readers mentioned they required tissues while reading this story.

Bereft

Colonel Jack O'Neill, two l's, glanced at his watch for the fifth time in less than three minutes. He'd heard the key in the lock, then a thud as something heavy hit the door. As he was pretty good at identifying the sound of Daniel Jackson's head hitting various immovable objects, Jack was relatively sure he could identify what body part had hit the door. He was also relatively sure that the thud, if not necessarily voluntary, at least hadn't been involuntary. Which really only meant he didn't think Daniel had passed out in the hall in front of his apartment.

But, if Dr. Jackson didn't get his ass inside in the next thirty seconds Colonel O'Neill was going into S&R mode with a vengeance.

Jack was on his feet, had taken a step forward, when the door finally opened. He stepped back, sank down in the chair and watched the archeologist trudge into the apartment, drop his keys on the table and move on automatic pilot into the kitchen. Feeling slightly voyeuristic, watched Daniel's feet take him, apparently without conscious volition, from the kitchen into the bedroom.

When the whistle of the tea kettle failed to reanimate the archeologist, Jack rose, his search and rescue spidey sense still tingling. He'd wondered at the brief foray into the kitchen. Now it made sense, Daniel must have just turned on the stove.

On one level, the Colonel hoped his teammate was aware that he was there. If Daniel felt comfortable enough to ignore him, it would make his job a whole lot easier.

On the other hand, if he scared the shit out of his friend because Daniel had no idea he was there ... not so easy.

Cupboard doors snicked and banged as Jack rummaged for tea bags; herbal, no caffeine - Fraiser had only released Daniel from the infirmary to attend the funeral. In the silence of the apartment, even the teaspoon clinking in the mug sounded loud to Jack's ears, clanging like the Gate klaxon for an off world activation.

Daniel had flatly refused to return as an inmate to the infirmary when they'd gotten back from Abydos. And before any of them had even been aware he'd left the base, Daniel had collected his car and gone home.

His actions had not been unexpected, only his ability to carry them out so quickly and with such efficiency. A wounded Daniel always retreated and he was sorely wounded this time, physically and emotionally. Teal'c had told them another thirty seconds and Daniel would have been dead.

Again.

So yes, they'd expected him to bolt. It was just that no one had expected him to completely by-pass the routine medical clearance required after having been off world, or the standard MRI to make sure they hadn't accidentally gotten themselves Goa'uld'd.

Rather stupid of them, they'd agreed, in hindsight.

The military's rules meant little or nothing to Dr. Jackson. He was compliant where he absolutely had to be to keep his job, yielding when he found it to be in his best interests and flat out defiant when the rules crossed his internal boundaries.

This was one of those times when personal boundaries had been pushed to the max.

The tea bag slipped off the spoon just as Jack managed the twist of his wrist that should have flipped the tail around the arc. Head cocked, he tried again. It didn't look that hard when Daniel did it. When the slippery bag plopped back into the tea for the third time, he reached in and nipped the damn thing out with his fingers, opening the cupboard under the sink to drop it in the trash.

The minty smell rising from the mug tickled his nose and made him sneeze, which in turn made him wonder how Daniel could drink the stuff with his allergies. He sneezed again as he pulled out the sugar bowl, liberally lacing the tea with sweetener.

Since he'd made enough racket to wake the dead, Jack figured if he still surprised the archeologist, then it was time for more drastic measures, like hauling his ass back to the infirmary.

"Hey, your tea's ready." Jack sat down carefully on the edge of the bed.

No response, not even an acknowledgment of his presence, from the prone figure sprawled across most of the bed.

"Daniel?"

"Do I need to spell it out? I - want - to - be - left - alone." Even lacking Daniel's usual vehemence, the evenly spaced, oddly uninflected words packed a punch.

"Believe me, I understand." Jack took a sip of the tea, grimacing at the sweetness. "Ugh. You like this stuff?"

"Go away, Jack."

"Sorry," Jack replied gently, "not going away. Come on, sit up and drink this before it gets cold." He watched the broad shoulders twitch as Daniel considered how best to get rid of him. "You can ignore me all night long. I'm not going away."

Daniel pushed himself over on his back, banging a knee against Jack in the process. "Sorry," he muttered, obviously against his will. Clearly if Jack wasn't sitting on his bed he wouldn't have to be apologizing. "I don't want tea."

"You put the kettle on. I'm happy to make coffee. Got any decaf?"

"I don't want coffee."

"Okay." No coffee, no tea. "I can see why you don't want this. Why do you keep this stuff in the house anyway?"

"Because it's good for you," Daniel responded automatically, then rolled his eyes and shifted back over on his stomach. "Go away, Jack," he repeated, evidently hoping repetition would work where emotionless dismissal did not.

"I'm willing to go as far as the living room."

"Go to your own living room."

"Sure you don't want this?" Jack asked, sloshing tea over the sides of the mug as he realized Daniel was still wearing his shoes and they were soaked. "Jesus, Daniel, have you been outside all this time? Please tell me you weren't wandering around without a coat."

"I just wanted to feel on the outside like I feel on the inside."

Jack's jaw tightened. Involuntarily, his eyes squeezed shut. He remembered very well what it was like to be so cold on the inside. He'd gone through the days following Charlie's death and funeral in a kind of methodical daze.

Colonel Jack O'Neill always got the job done, no matter how distasteful the job was. Find a funeral home; pick a casket; get a burial plot; make decisions about how to inter the body; make arrangements with the base Chaplain; plan a memorial service -- for his eleven-year-old son.

He knew what to do; had done it countless times before for buddies and colleagues, had helped wives of friends through the process.

Not once had it ever crossed his mind he'd be doing it for his own son.

Oh yeah, he remembered it much too clearly. There was very little he could do for Daniel in this state.

Jack swallowed the remainder of the too sweet, rapidly cooling tea. As penance it left a lot to be desired, but then, he didn't even believe in penance anymore ... did he?

Which was fortunate, really, when he thought about the times he'd screwed up when it came to Doctor Daniel Jackson.

As much as O'Neill despised paper work, he was thorough and relentless when it came to those under his command. So he'd read Jackson's file backwards and forwards. You didn't get into a top secret facility in the United States just by invitation. Catherine had had to have permission in order to invite the archeologist cum linguist in the guise of Daniel Jackson inside the Mountain.

Colonel O'Neill had read the file before he'd even met the long-haired, sneezing geek, who, if Daniel's version of the story was anywhere near the truth, had accidentally stumbled onto the secret of the Stargate in an SF's newspaper.

And pigeon-holed him as a nutcase from the first reading of the file. One look at the ratty suitcases and the wrinkled, slightly damp garments had confirmed his worst nightmare.

A bonafide nutcase. One who believed the Egyptian pyramids were landing sites for alien spaces ships.

Even before he'd met the geek, Jack had done his best to sabotage Catherine's attempts to bring the archeologist on board, following along behind in her wake snipping every thread she wove with her Washington connections.

In the end, O'Neill had had to concede the win to the civilian scientist. Despite all his efforts, Catherine had prevailed.

And Dr. Jackson had opened the Stargate.

Back then they'd had no idea how big a secret they were sitting on; just how potentially explosive that big round ring of unidentifiable stone was going to turn out to be.

Then Daniel had handed them the keys to open it and promised to get them home once they stepped through.

And Jack had made his second mistake with Daniel Jackson. He'd misinterpreted the younger man's eagerness to go through the Gate as a desire to escape nearly equal to his own.

Daniel had stepped through the Gate into happily ever after; once he'd reined in Jack's suicidal tendency, won over the entire unit of Air Force trained and hardened military types and turned an entire culture inside out, moving them to overthrow their false god and proclaim themselves a free people.

Jack had gone back home, retired ... again, and spent a year contemplating who would be fool enough to give up every creature comfort on Earth for the admittedly beautiful Sha'uri and a couple of pet mastadges on an alien planet a thousand years behind in civilization and culture.

For cryin' out loud, they didn't even have Kleenex!

So by the time he'd been hauled out of retirement yet again, and sent back through the Gate with orders to retrieve the errant archeologist, Colonel O'Neill had figured he had a handle on the adopted Abydonian.

Off beat genius; check. Wasn't afraid to live on the edge; check. Didn't take much to make him happy; check.

Except Daniel's happily ever after had lasted 369 Earth days. A year and four days by the Earth calendar, a little less than a year by Abydonian counting. And as much as Jack wanted to take the blame for that day, logically he knew that their returning to Abydos had nothing to do with Sha're and Skarra's kidnappings. Infact, if it hadn't been for his men, more might have been taken.

Jack found himself unexpectedly in the kitchen, standing at the counter, mug still in his hand. He set it gently in the sink and went in search of extra blankets. If he couldn't coax Daniel to get into bed, he could at least make sure he was covered.

He ran across one of those neck warmer thingies Carter had been passing out like candy a few months back, threw it in the microwave for a couple of minutes and made sure he tucked it inside the quilt as he wrapped the quilt around Daniel's feet, after he'd stripped off the soaked shoes and socks. Since there was no protest from the archeologist, Jack tucked the quilt around his shoulders too, briefly laid a hand on Daniel's head, then slipped quietly out of the room.

Jack sank down on the sofa, slung a knee over the arm and flopped backwards. Abydonian days were several hours longer than Earth days and they'd left early to make sure Daniel had a chance to say his last goodbyes and to work out the details of the ceremony with Kasuf. Then stayed for the village wake which had involved vast quantities of food and drink and as much laughter as mourning.

It had been a beautiful send off for Sha'uri. Daniel had been in the middle of much of the laughter and all of the mourning, able to share his sorrow with the villagers in a way he couldn't with SG-1. Though one of them had shadowed him constantly, they'd deliberately stayed in the background, until Jack had seen Daniel was literally trembling with fatigue. He'd slung an arm around the drooping shoulders, steered Daniel to Kasuf and made their apologies, reminding Kasuf that Daniel was only out of the infirmary on special dispensation, before shepherding him back through the Stargate.

His mistake had been leaving Daniel alone in the locker room, expecting him to catch up in the infirmary. Jack rarely made those kinds of mistakes anymore with Daniel. Three and a half years had taught him that Daniel almost never did the expected. So he should have been ready, except none of them had gotten much sleep in the last week.

Well, maybe Daniel had, but it had been a drugged sleep, and Jack was aware that drugged sleep did not usually produce a rested Daniel. Curiously, an induced state of unconsciousness in Daniel tended to supercharge his nightmares. Frasier was more inclined now to use a very light hand when it came to sedating Daniel, and his teammate's kept vigil around the clock so one of them was always with him in the infirmary.

Despite his own exhaustion, sleep was a long time coming for Jack. He had failed Daniel again, and so very badly. 'If anyone can get her back, Jack can', ran through his head on a continuous loop. 'If any one can get her back ...'

He had gotten Sha'uri back. Sha'uri with a gaping hole in her midriff. A dead Sha'uri, but he had gotten her back. The maybes and what ifs swirling in his mind were useless, but served to keep the nightmare at bay for awhile.

Maybe if Daniel hadn't rushed in; maybe if Teal'c had tried to reason with Ammonet; what if Daniel had waited for back-up; what if, what if, what if ...

It was cold comfort, especially when a dream version of the Gamekeeper wandered into his mind and tried to take up residence with a whispered, "You could try it this way ..."

He woke, less than an hour later he discovered, pressing the button to light up his watch. Jack rubbed both hands over his face, yawning as he sat up. "Can't sleep?" He leaned back against the arm of the sofa surveying the shadowy presence standing in front of the sliding glass doors, both arms wrapped tightly around his chest.

"Then go home."

"You can't sleep?" Jack repeated patiently.

"And exactly why would I want to sleep?"

At least there was some inflection back in the voice, even if it was a sharp-edged sarcasm. Jack bit back a sigh. Daniel didn't need words, especially not lectures on sleep depravation. He was so desperately alone and separate from them; Jack understood it was by Daniel's own choosing, but he was determined, if nothing else, to break through that protective shell and compel Daniel to accept the comfort his team so badly needed to offer.

His own poisonous bitterness at fate had hardened the shell he'd thrown up around himself after Charlie's death, until Daniel and Skaara had finally broken through it, many months after the fact. Jack wanted desperately to keep Daniel off that path.

The archeologist had handed him the perfect opportunity to redirect that path; all it would take would be a very few words, five to be exact. But if he said them, he committed all of them to a galaxy wide man hunt. Okay, baby hunt. Anyway you looked at it, Daniel would likely end up in a world more hurt than he was already. The words were on the tip of his tongue, 'we'll look for Sha'uri's child'; Jack chewed them back deliberately. Instead, he rose and went to stand beside his friend.

The glow of the street lamps illuminated the snow lit clouds in the hovering sky. They were going to get dumped on again before morning. Nothing unusual here in Colorado.

Jack, unlike desert-born and bred Daniel, had grown up in Minnesota and Illinois and liked the snow. The way it created unexpected stargates for the fanciful eye in a circle of glistening, snow-heavy branches. The squeak and crunch of it underfoot during a fast and furious snowball fight, where Teal'c usually won because of his reach and aim, Daniel joined in if only as a means of self-defense, and Carter always ended up making snow angels. He liked to stand on his back deck and listen to the hushed sound of snow falling on snow.

Tonight, though, Jack saw only the fingers of frost spreading lethally inside his friend. He could dredge up no words of comfort, nor would Daniel want to hear them if he could. He remembered needing Sara desperately, needing her to be his rock, to just hold him, but he'd been unable to ask and Sara, in her own grief, had lost that intuitive sense she'd been so good at with her Special Ops Colonel husband. Sara had probably needed him as much as he'd needed her; when Jack had turned inward, Sara had turned to her Dad. He was glad now she'd at least had someone to turn to.

He brought his hand up to spread his fingers on the cold glass door, thinking again of Daniel tramping through the snow totally exposed to the elements, wanting to be as cold on the outside as he was on the inside. How else could he light a fire inside the archeologist again without setting them all up for a Humpty Dumpty fall?

"Daniel," he began softly, "about Sha'uri's son ..." For a brief moment he saw a flash of something in the blue eyes he couldn't identify.

"I'll get over it eventually ... like I always do ... just not tonight." Daniel closed his eyes and slumped forward resting his forehead against the glass. "Please, Jack, please," he begged shamelessly, "just a few hours. Come back in the morning."

"I'm not leaving you here alone." Jack wrapped a hand around the back of Daniel's neck, realizing belatedly he'd moved the hand he'd just had against the window, and was surprised to find that even after a couple of hours well insulated and wrapped against the cold the archeologist was still freezing. There was very little difference between Daniel's body temperature and his hand.

For a second, maybe two, Daniel leaned into the chilled hand, then impatiently jerked away. "I don't want, or need, a babysitter tonight," he snapped, grinding his heel into the carpet as he executed a precision about-face. He shook off the hand that descended to his shoulder, automatically stepped over a pile of books in his way and headed for the bedroom.

His knees buckled and he sat abruptly on the side of the bed. Exhaustion, like a black tide, was creeping up from his toes. He slumped sideways, pulling his heavy bare feet up one at a time, then turned on his stomach again.

He had managed, in the infirmary, through that initial tide of grief, to keep it to a single tear here and there, a few more when he'd finally been left alone, though those moments had been rare. He'd even held it together through the ceremony, speaking the ancient words for Sha'uri with dignity and pride as he sent his one true love off where he could not consciously choose to follow her anymore.

When he'd finally escaped to the privacy of his apartment, he'd been so cold inside the tears had already frozen into diamond-edged shards of pain. So instead of the release he'd expected to find in solitude, he'd found instead the sharp points relentlessly poking at the back of his eyeballs, unexpectedly spiking little shooting pains through his head as the ice inexorably expanded down his throat, into his chest and abdomen, clear down to his toes.

He knew, intellectually at least, that the sharp little shooting pains in his head were probably left over gifts from the ribbon device. But his heart was slowing incrementally as the ice crept relentlessly into his veins, further slowing the sluggish flow of blood through his body.

Daniel jerked and rolled out from under Jack's hand, forced his eyes open to look up at the older man.

The still, quiet face above him was ravaged with grief. Jack looked as though he hadn't slept in days. And the understanding in those usually fathomless brown eyes nearly broke Daniel's resolve.

Jack and Sam, even Teal'c, would gladly shoulder as much of his grief as he would share so the frighteningly heavy burden did not consume him.

Right now, though, he wanted to be consumed. Wanted to be burned up in the fire of anger and loss 'til there was nothing left of him but ice-cold ashes.

He wanted, needed, to be alone; was desperate to be just Daniel for the sake of Daniel and no one else.

He'd spent the day being a grieving husband, a dutiful son-in-law, a linguist and an anthropologist blending in like the chameleon he was.

Tonight -- tonight he needed time and space to just be Daniel.

Worn down by his long search, frustrated and angry at fate for again snatching away something he held infinitely dear, a little frightened by the future yawning cavernously in front of him with no real touchstone to ground him anymore, he wanted more than anything to retreat into that space he kept hollowed out inside himself. A space reserved for times like this when dreams he'd learned long ago were best left unacknowledged, shattered against the immovable, unyielding force of fate.

The glacier in his soul had even reached tentative fingers into that sacrosanct space; testing, probing, pushing forward against the resistance until his tattered and torn spirit finally yielded the hard fought ground.

There was no place left to retreat.

Warm fingers ghosted over his still cold cheek, slipped confidently into place around the back of his neck and began to knead muscles tense with opposition and exhaustion.

The will to resist was shrinking rapidly in the face of Jack's steady, insistent pressure against the barricade Daniel was striving desperately to shore up.

In a last ditch effort to rebuff the unwanted comfort, he turned on his side, wrapping his own arms around himself again. "Go home, Jack," he murmured wearily. "At least one of us should get a decent night's sleep."

He heard the thud of boots being levered off, felt the mattress give even more and Jack's body, wrapped around him from knees to shoulders, was absorbing the iciness, sucking the cold out of him like a vacuum.

Deep inside his chest, the ice began to thaw.

Daniel conceded the battle and let his tears baptize the shoulder pillowing his cheek.

Somehow the thought took root, as Jack's warmth nurtured the nearly dormant kernel of physical cognition in Daniel, that he hadn't slept since Sha'uri had been taken at the Abydos Gate.

Sleep came slowly, stealing away the last token resistance as it smoothed out the small crease between his brows. He fell asleep in Jack's arms, a little surprised and distinctly wary about how natural it seemed to just let go and let Jack hold his sanity while he slept.

It had been such a very long time ...