Lovely

by Martha

"And all alone on the hill I wondered what was true. I had seen something very amazing and very lovely, and I knew a story, and if I had really seen it, and not made it up out of the dark, but had really seen it in truth, then there were all kinds of wonderful and lovely and terrible things to think of, so I longed and trembled, and I burned and got cold." Arthur Machen, "The White People" (1899, 1922 ed)

"I know it's there, but when I look, there's nothing." Jim Ellison, "Flight"

The library was closed on Christmas Eve. Of course. What else could Blair have expected? But no one had ever gotten around to posting the holiday schedule, and he'd assumed the library would be open short hours on Christmas Eve just like it was the rest of the winter break. Christmas Day, sure, he'd known they would be closed then. But Christmas Eve, well, dammit, they should have posted the hours. He stomped over and tried the doors even though he already knew they were locked. He knew because he'd already watched the guy with glasses who'd arrived just ahead of him yank on them in frustration. "I don't think they're open," he told Blair unnecessarily as the doors remained obstinately closed.

"Yeah, what a pain. There was no point in even coming onto campus today."

Blair knew this guy. Sort of. At any rate, he'd seen him around the library a few times during the last month, usually up on the sixth floor or down in special collections. He wasn't in the anthro department, not here at Rainier at any rate, but there was something vaguely familiar about him. Blair had figured it would come to him eventually. They'd probably met at a conference somewhere.

He was just on the verge of introducing himself to the only other person on campus without sense enough to know that the library would be closed today, when the guy pushed his glasses farther up on his nose and asked, "Do you know what's up? Do you think they'll be open tomorrow?"

Oookay. Make that the only person on campus even more clueless than Blair. "It's Christmas Eve, man. You noticed all the twinkly lights around town? Candy canes? Tinsel? Santa Claus and his eight tiny reindeer?"

The guy just looked at him, his mouth hanging open a little. "Oh," he said at last, jaws clicking together. "Right."

Damn, Blair was sure he knew this person from somewhere, and he felt a stir of sympathy for him, whoever he was. A dozen little things indicated that he was probably very much alone. The buttons on his checkered shirt weren't lined up, and his jacket was too light for the weather. He'd had short hair in the not-too-distant past, but it was growing out shaggy and untended now. And of course, he hadn't even noticed it was Christmas Eve.

Decision made, Blair stuck out his hand. "Blair Sandburg."

The other man glanced down at the proffered hand, eyebrows rising. "Um, hello," he said vaguely.

Right. Blair dropped his hand and soldiered on. "So, since it doesn't look like either one of us is going to be spending time in the library this afternoon, lemme buy you a latte at Chattz. It's right off campus, and I'm pretty sure they'll be open."

All he got for his pains was another blank stare. Blair didn't give up, plastering an expectant smile on his face and waiting.

"Thanks," the guy said at last, when he finally figured out Blair wouldn't go away on his own. He crossed his arms protectively over his chest. "No, uh, thank you."

"OK." Blair shrugged. "Merry Christmas, man. Take it easy."

The guy nodded a little and turned back the way he had come. Blair went the other direction, deciding he was relieved the guy had turned him down. Making conversation would have been an uphill battle all the way, and besides, he'd rather be at the station with Jim. Jim was about as unsentimental about Christmas as it was possible for a guy with his upbringing to be, but Blair suspected he still got little twinges of -- not homesickness, exactly, nostalgia, maybe -- around the holidays. He probably wouldn't mind spending Christmas Eve at home decorating a tree and watching A Charlie Brown Christmas. Since that wasn't going to happen, the least Blair could do was hang out at the station with him.

Blair was actually fitting the key into his ignition when suddenly, it hit him. He did know that guy at the library after all. Oh, man. How could he have forgotten?

Those raised eyebrows. That blank stare. Of course Blair knew him. He was that asshole linguist from the AOS conference five or six years ago. Jackson something. Samuel Jackson. No, that was the actor. Daniel Jackson. God, of course. Remembering their one and only meeting made Blair angry all over again. Come on, would it really have taken him so long to listen to Blair's tape and let him know if the language was actually Domari and whether the speaker was really talking about an ancient tradition of sentinels? Blair wouldn't have asked if it hadn't been important. Besides, it wasn't like you could find people fluent in an endangered Indic diaspora language spoken among formerly itinerant metalworkers in Old Jerusalem just dropping off the trees around here.

But when Blair had asked him about it, Dr. Jackson had only blinked at him, vague and utterly infuriating, and said he wasn't interested.

"Wasn't interested"? What kind of an answer was THAT supposed to have been? It wasn't like Blair had been demanding that he make it his life work. Just asking him to share some of his knowledge, colleague to colleague. A professional courtesy. Obviously Dr. Jackson didn't know the meaning of the word, so it probably wasn't surprising he had ended up five or six years down the road wandering around bewildered and alone on Christmas Eve. Given that his social skills didn't seem to have improved in the intervening years, Blair wondered if the man had any friends at all.

As he drove to the Westchester exit, he passed Dr. Jackson still on foot, trudging toward visitor parking. It just figured the guy didn't even know he could have parked at the faculty club right around the corner from the library when school wasn't in session. Actually, as a visiting professor he probably could have parked at the faculty club anyway. Didn't know enough to ask, and he probably annoyed everyone so much that nobody would bother to tell him.

A few snowflakes were beginning to drift down from the late afternoon sky. Jackson's head was down, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his windbreaker against the cold. The backpack over one shoulder seemed more appropriate for a grad student than a man with a handful of Ph.D.s and a tenured position. Blair glanced up in the rear view mirror just before the curve in the road took Dr. Jackson out of his sight for good, and to his disgust, his guilt got the better of him.

It was Christmas Eve after all. The dominant culture's ritual, commercial celebration of peace on earth, good will to men, dammit.

He swung a u-turn at the first opportunity and drove back, thinking he could probably intercept him in visitor parking. He felt first relieved and then a little disappointed in himself when he didn't spot him in the lot. Then he saw two men standing by a battered little Honda, both of them leaning in to talk to the driver. Had to be Dr. J. Apparently he had some friends after all. Well, good. Blair didn't have to feel guilty about just driving on.

Something was nagging at him though, and without really thinking about what he was doing, he cut diagonally across the almost-empty parking lot to get a closer look at Dr. Jackson's friends. They were leaning in close, and one of them had both his hands inside the car.

Oh, shit. In fact, the guy had his fists wrapped in Dr. Jackson's windbreaker and was trying to drag him out. Blair gunned the engine and headed straight for them, hoping his presence would be enough to scare them off. One of the men darted a glance over his shoulder but instead of giving up, both of them redoubled their efforts, succeeding in pulling Dr. Jackson partially out. He was fighting hard, though, and for an instant he yanked himself free. Blair was braking and jumping out when Dr. Jackson's open door was violently slammed, and Blair heard his shocked yelp of pain.

Dammit, dammit, dammit. Where were the campus police when you really needed them? "Get the hell away from him!" Blair yelled, wishing his cell phone wasn't buried at the bottom of his backpack. Dr. Jackson's attackers yanked his door open to reveal the him hunched forward with his right hand cradled to his chest. He began flailing in furious resistance all the same as they tried again to pull him out. Then, to Blair's horror, he thought he saw the nearer of the two men leveling a weapon.

Blair screamed, "I've already called the cops!" and leaped.

He tackled the man with the gun as hard as he could, his shoulder hitting the small of his back with what should have been bone-rattling force. Instead, Blair had a brief, impossible impression of his shoulder sinking far too deeply, like he'd just run into a feather-stuffed mannequin instead of a human being. Before he could recover, a hard backhand that wasn't remotely soft or downy sent him sprawling to the pavement. He heard something crackling overhead and smelled ozone in the air. A taser? he wondered blearily, dragging himself to his knees. Who were these guys?

He lunged at the nearer pair of legs, wrapped his arms around them, and this time they both went down in a muddle of tangled limbs. Blair heard himself swearing and huffing as he tried to avoid getting a foot in the face. "You won't get away with this! I told you, the cops will be here any second!"

Suddenly the other man kicked his way free, and Blair was left holding nothing. He rolled over, propping himself on his elbows, his skin still tingling from the proximity of the electrical charge. The first thing he saw was Dr. Jackson hanging out of the Honda, his cheek smashed flat against the pavement, his glasses broken and his legs still in the car. He looked entirely and thoroughly dead.

"Aw jeezus --" Blair muttered, looking around for the two thugs, but they must have been on the other side of the car, because he couldn't see them. Apparently the threat of the cops' imminent arrival had scared them off after all. Be nice if the cops really were on the way. Be even nicer if Jim were on his way. He crawled to Jackson's side, checking for cables before he touched him. He didn't think tasers carried a charge for more than thirty seconds or so, but it was for sure he couldn't do Dr. Jackson any good if he got knocked out cold, too.

Not finding any wires, Blair slid one hand under his cheek and put the other on his throat. He felt a strong pulse and closed his eyes. Merry Christmas, Dr. Jackson, he thought with relief.

He shifted around, supporting Jackson's head and shoulders as best he could. It was a struggle. The guy had shoulders as broad as Jim's and he weighed a ton. Whatever he'd been doing the past five years, it hadn't just been sitting in a library. He patted the side of Dr. Jackson's face that wasn't scraped up from contact with the pavement and said, "Hey. Wake up. Come on, can you open your eyes?"

Jackson flinched and moaned. "That's right," Blair encouraged. "Wake up and give me a hand so we can both get off the pavement."

His eyelids fluttered, and he tried to raise his head. "Aw, Jack," he moaned. "God, it hurts."

"Yeah, I bet. Come on, Dr. Jackson. Wake up."

His eyes flew open. "Who are you?" he whispered hoarsely.

"Blair Sandburg. We've already met. Look, you can't be comfortable like this. Let me help you out so I can call the cops before those guys get too far away."

"No," he protested, trying to twist around. "Don't. You can't."

"Easy. One thing at a time." Blair tried to help, but Dr. Jackson pushed and kicked himself free of the car in a frantic rush, landing hard on his side. He shouted in pain and immediately curled up tight, holding his right hand close to his chest, gasping and swearing.

"You idiot," Blair snapped, agonized for him. "I told you to take it easy. Let me see."

"I'm fine," Dr. Jackson grunted, hardly able to speak for the pain. "I'm fine, just help me up."

"Dammit, I'm not helping you up until you let me see that hand. Your choice, man. You want to just lie here in the parking lot all night, that's fine with me."

Jackson blinked up at him balefully. He was trembling with shock or pain or the cold, his teeth chattering audibly. A muscle jumped in his cheek. "Don't call the police," he ground out.

"Do I look like I'm calling anybody right now? Now come on, let me see your hand."

He slowly uncurled his hand from his chest, and Blair winced. "One of those fingers is definitely broken." He reached out but didn't touch Jackson's hand. "God, maybe even two or three of them."

"Bastards slammed it in the car door," Jackson said. A tear of rage or pain glittered in the corner of one eye. "You'd think with all the --" He broke off with a deep, shuddering breath. "Damn it."

"Yeah." It occurred to Blair that he hadn't heard another car's engine, meaning that Jackson's attackers were probably still close. They should just get the hell away from here, worry about calling Jim when they were both safe.

"Can you sit up?"

Jackson nodded, flinching involuntarily when Blair put his hands under his shoulders to help. Probably still shocky from being hit with the taser.

"Do you know who those guys were?"

It took Jackson another minute to catch his breath once he was propped against the car. He held the wrist of his right hand with his left and wouldn't look at Blair. "No," he said, his voice quiet and level. He was manifestly lying through his teeth. "I have no idea who those men were."

"Uh huh. So you have no idea if they're likely to try again."

Jackson looked up, startled. Obviously that hadn't occurred to him. "We should get out of here."

"Hey, good plan. Can you stand up?"

"I'm fine." He nodded as though trying to convince himself. "I can get up."

"Sure thing." Arguing with the man wasn't going to get them out of the parking lot any faster. Though it wasn't even four o'clock yet, the sky was dark gray and streetlights were beginning to blink on. Snowflakes whirled down around them, white against the asphalt for an instant before they melted. Blair shifted around next to him. "I'm just gonna give you a hand here, OK?"

Jackson nodded again and allowed Blair to pull his arm around his neck. "Ready?"

From the way Jackson wobbled once Blair managed to get to his feet, he was afraid they were both going to end up on the ground again. He pushed him hard up against his car and braced him there, looking around as he did for some sign of Jackson's attackers. To all appearances the parking lot was empty, and Blair gave thanks for small mercies.

In the meantime Jackson's face was as white as the falling snow. Probably going into shock. "Tell you what. How about I run you over to the Emergency Room and get your hand looked at. Sound good?"

"No," Jackson whispered. His eyes were closed and he was shivering convulsively. "I can drive myself."

"Oh yeah. Great plan, Dr. Jackson. First, though, I need for you to just take two steps this way, think you can manage that? And then you can drive yourself anywhere you want."

"My name isn't Jackson," he insisted suddenly, but he leaned into Blair's support when Blair wrapped an arm around his waist, and he obligingly shuffled forward when Blair walked him to his own Volvo.

"Just hold on a minute more --" Blair grunted, struggling to get the door open without dropping Jackson on the pavement. Or not-Jackson. It'd be pretty ironic if he'd gotten embroiled in all this because of a case of mistaken identity. Of course, like Naomi was always saying, everything happens for a reason. Whether this poor bastard was Daniel Jackson or not, he'd needed help this afternoon, and Blair had happened along at the right time.

He got him into the passenger seat of his Volvo without much trouble, Jackson or whoever he was being too dazed to protest being dumped in. Blair shut the door carefully and hustled around to the driver's side before his passenger could figure out he wasn't in his own car. He wasn't fast enough. As soon as he swung himself in, Dr. Jackson's long-lost twin clutched at Blair with his good hand. "My backpack," he said. "Everything's in there."

"All right, all right. I'll get it. Is it in your car?"

"I don't know." Myopic blue eyes peered at him anxiously. "God, I don't remember. I have to see." Forgetting his injury, he reached for the door handle before Blair could stop him, and then shouted aloud in agony.

"Aw, geez!" Blair flinched hard in sympathetic pain. "I'll get it for you already. I'll get it. Just sit still."

The man nodded without answering, his jaw clenched hard. "I'll be right back," Blair promised as he bolted out of the car to look for the backpack. The snow was falling harder, blowing sideways in a sudden, stiff wind. The backpack was on the floor in the back seat of the Honda. Blair snatched it up, staggering in surprise at its weight. Did the guy have his entire life stashed in there or what? He pulled the keys out of the ignition and stuffed them in an outside pocket, and after he locked and shut the door, he saw the bent, broken pair of glasses on the ground, and he rescued them as well. The wind blew dead leaves with the snow across the empty parking lot, and the entire campus seemed hideously wild and lonely. He hurried back to his own car. "Got it, Dr. Jackson," he said breathlessly, before remembering that this wasn't Daniel Jackson after all.

But after seeing his backpack safely stowed in the back seat, Blair's passenger just nodded in weary relief and leaned back against the seat, his eyes closing and his right hand curled against his chest.

~~~

Hammond's smile was warm and genuine. "Merry Christmas, Jack." He shook Jack's hand, clapping his other hand on Jack's shoulder. "I'm glad you could stop by," he added, as though the invitation hadn't been just a hair short of a direct order. "Come in, come in. Let me take your coat."

"Merry Christmas, sir. Thank you." Jack knew his own smile was sad and tight, but he just didn't have the energy to summon a happier expression.

The general's house smelled like the nine-foot fir tree in the living room, like bayberry candles, like cinnamon and nutmeg, oranges and cloves. Jack had been able to see the lights twinkling in every window all the way from the street. A storm was brewing to the west, but the sky overhead was clear, the crescent moon brilliant on the mantle of snow blanketing the grounds. "Beautiful night, isn't it?" Hammond agreed with Jack's unspoken thoughts, shutting the door after him. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"I'm not --"

"I know, Christmas Eve, you've probably got other places to be tonight, but I just cracked open a bottle of seventeen-year-old Ardbeg. A little raw for an archeologist's tastes, probably, but a pair of old soldiers like us, it just hits the spot."

Jack looked at him sharply, but the general's face was bland with good cheer. "Thank you," Jack said cautiously. "I believe I could use a drink after all. Is the family coming over tonight?"

"Already been here. I'll go over to Mary and Richard's in the morning." Hammond led Jack into his study, where "Silver Bells" was playing rather loudly on the stereo. "Kayla's getting a bicycle this year," he confided. "I can't wait to see the look on her face. In fact," he continued, pouring a glass of whiskey for Jack from the bottle sitting on his desk, "you should come over in the morning if you don't have other plans. You know Mary and Richard are always glad to see you."

"Thank you, sir." Jack sipped the whisky, and it was like smoke on his tongue and fire in his throat. "I think I'll probably just stay in this Christmas. Or if Teal'c gets a hankering to go to the movies we might go see what's playing at the Cineplex."

"I understand," Hammond said, almost laughing. He took a long drink from his own glass and then opened a desk drawer and took out a single piece of paper which he pushed across the table to Jack. Jack thought he was prepared for this, but he found he still had to sit down before reading what the general had given him.

"They've found him, Jack."

"Son of a bitch," Jack breathed. Nope, apparently he wasn't prepared for this at all. Just the sight of Daniel's cramped, damn-near unreadable handwriting was like a fist around his heart. He thought he would be furious. He'd been so angry since Daniel had pulled his little disappearing act that for months he'd hardly been able to say his name without spitting. He'd told himself that Dr. Daniel Jackson just better keep the fuck away from him because the next time Jack saw him he would cheerfully break his jaw for him. That same jaw that could flap on forever about everything under every sun in the galaxy, except for whatever the hell was bothering him so bad that he could just walk away from his whole life without saying a word to anyone.

The anger was gone now, lost under the ocean-deep swell of relief at suddenly knowing Daniel was alive and well enough to fill out an application to access special collections at some university library up in Washington state. God Almighty. Six months after disappearing so thoroughly it was like he'd slipped through the wormhole when nobody was looking, Daniel had finally blown his cover, using his real name and academic credentials to get a freaking library card, for chrissakes. It was so Daniel of him that Jack could have wept.

"This is dated three weeks ago," he said when he trusted himself to speak. "Are we sure he's still there?"

"No."

Damn. "Does NID know?"

Hammond nodded. "In all likelihood my source will have provided this information to them at the same time he passed it along to me."

"You have some interesting . . . friends, sir." Jack couldn't help it.

"Not friends," Hammond corrected a little sternly. "Necessary all the same."

Holding the proof there in his hands, Jack could hardly disagree. "Permission to fly up there and drag his butt the hell back home, general?"

"You know it's not quite that easy."

Well, yeah, maybe Jack did know that, but right now he didn't want to hear it. "With all due respect --"

"Do you really want to see him in Leavenworth, Jack?"

"He's a civilian. He has every right to quit anytime he --"

"He's also one hell of a security risk. It'd be a short trip from Leavenworth to Area 51. Shorter than the one back to SGC."

Jack flattened his hand over the copy of the library card application. It was blurry from being faxed, xeroxed, God knows what. He thought about people looking for Daniel, people who had the resources to find evidence like this. "Then what do you want me to do, sir? Just leave him to the wolves?"

Hammond didn't reproach him. If anything, his expression grew more gentle. "Get to him first. Find out what he's doing and why he left."

"We already know why he left. Shif --" he broke off. Anyone surveilling them already knew exactly what they were talking about, but there was no point in handing them everything on a platter. "That kid did something to him. Filled his head with all sorts of crazy guilt and God knows what, and then the Light scrambled his brains until he didn't know which end was up."

"I'm not saying you're wrong. But find him. Talk to him. If he wants to come home, then I'll move heaven and earth to make it happen, but if he really wants to turn his back on the whole program -- well, he's going to need help to do that, too. He can't hide himself forever."

"You'd do that for Daniel. Help him -- hide."

"Help him resign safely, ensure that he won't have to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, yes."

Jack looked at him. "You've been planning for this," he said in slow realization. "You knew Danny might decide to bolt."

"I hoped I was wrong," Hammond said. "But since the death of his wife I've suspected he might decide to leave the SGC, and that it wouldn't be easy for him." There was pity on Hammond's face, as well as compassion. "Jack, do you mean to tell me you didn't know?"

~~~

"Jim. Jim." Blair switched the phone to his other ear. "Just hang on for one minute and listen to me, would you? It's Christmas Eve. Campus was practically deserted."

"The number of crime scenes you've been at over the years, and you --"

"I know. I know, but one last time, Jim. We were all alone out there. Dr. Jackson was going into shock. I'm not going to apologize for not hanging around out in the snow."

"Campus security could have been there in five minutes. If you'd called them they might even have had a chance of catching the perps."

"Yeah, maybe, but Jim, Christmas Eve, man. It could have been five minutes; it could have been fifteen or twenty. Besides, I told you Dr. Jackson needed medical attention, and those guys might have come back at any minute. Basic triage, right? Get the victim to a safe location."

"Sandburg, that was three and a half hours ago. You're just now reporting a violent attack on campus?"

OK, Jim had a point, Blair could admit that, but honestly, he hadn't known what else to do. "I know, and I'm sorry. But Dr. Jackson really, really didn't want me to call this in. It was all I could do to get him to sit still long enough to get treated in the first place. If I'd so much as looked at a telephone he would have just gotten up and walked out, broken fingers and all. I had to wait until they took him into x-ray to sneak out and call you."

"I don't suppose you remember what happened the last time you came home with someone who really, really didn't want to file a police report?"

Oh, now that was more than a little unfair. "It's not even remotely the same thing, Jim. Dr. Jackson's a Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Linguistics with a specialization in, um, geoarcheology or something like that, or you know, maybe it was Egyptology after all -- at Chicago or Yale, or was that where he got one of his degrees? It's been a few years since I looked him up, but the point is, I really doubt he has an ex-boyfriend who couriers heroin across the Canadian border, you know? Besides, I'm not planning on bringing him home."

Jim sounded unimpressed by Jackson's credentials. "How sure are you that he's really this Dr. Jackson at all? You told me he wouldn't even let you sign him in under that name."

"I'm pretty sure it's him, actually. I was talking to him after he finally got a pain shot, and he can answer questions in Russian and Quechua if you catch him off guard. If he wants to call himself --" Blair looked at the flimsy carbon of the sign-in sheet he'd filled out for Dr. Jackson, "Walter Budge, and he doesn't want the police involved -- well, all right, maybe he's just eccentric, I don't know. Anyway, that's why I thought maybe you could call Suzanne Tamaki and let her know what happened. She would bawl me out for not reporting it sooner."

"Sandburg."

"Thanks, Jim, I knew I could count on you. Oh, hey, they're wheeling him out now. Gotta go." Blair hung up before Jim could point out to him that Daniel Jackson was an eccentric being hunted by a couple of dangerous thugs with tasers. Blair already knew that. It wasn't irrelevant, exactly, but it was just easier not to deal with right at the moment.

He followed the nurse's aide who was wheeling Jackson from x-ray back to the little curtained examination cubicle. "Hel-lo." Blair stuck his head around the curtain. "What's the damage?"

The aide was helping him shift from the wheelchair to an examination table covered with paper. Jackson looked up blearily. "Hey," he said, sounding a little surprised, but mostly doped up and very tired. "You're still here. What are you doing here?"

The aide looked stern. "Would you please return to the waiting room?"

"No," Jackson said, a little to Blair's surprise. "It's OK. He's the one who brought me in."

The aide left with an exasperated look at both of them, and Blair sauntered the rest of the way in. Jackson was sitting uncomfortably, his right hand awkwardly cradled on his lap. His eyes were bleary with exhaustion and the scratches on his face made him look like he'd been in a street fight. Come to think of it, he had been. He would have been more comfortable lying down, but Blair had to agree that despite the tiny disposable pillow at one end of the examination table, it wasn't a surface he would have wanted to stretch out on either. "They tell you anything about your hand yet?"

"No." Jackson closed his eyes for so long that he began to sway a bit until Blair touched his shoulder. He started awake. "No, I have to wait for a doctor to look at the x-rays."

"Oh, man. More waiting. Great."

Jackson actually smiled faintly in weary agreement. The Mitch Miller Gang was crooning "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" over the intercom, their mild-as-warm-milk voices interrupted occasionally by calls for surgeons to report to the operating room.

"Listen," Blair said cautiously. He'd tried to ask this before and Jackson had just stared at him, wild-eyed, but he seemed a little calmer and a lot more lucid now. "Do you have any friends in town? Someone I should call to let them know where you are?"

Jackson shook his head and looked at the floor, his momentary smile becoming fixed. "Not . . . exactly. No." He looked up. "I'm not from here," he volunteered suddenly, sounding pleased to have a rational explanation for being friendless.

"Oh. Just here for the library," Blair said. "I can't tell you how often I hear that."

Jackson looked at him.

"OK so, never, actually. Where are you staying? Did they you put up in visitor's housing? I hear Weschester House is beautiful. I've never been inside, myself, but supposedly they still have some of the original furnishings in the lobby. Just lucky it didn't come down in the earthquake. So many of the old buildings in that district were damaged last year."

His scintillating patter wasn't enough to keep Jackson's attention from beginning to drift. He looked around himself again and then back at Blair. "Why are you here?"

"Well, there were these two big guys in the parking lot --"

Jackson winced. "Please," he said quietly.

"Honestly. I just want to make sure you're all right."

"Why ... ?" The inflection on the word spoke volumes, rising and falling to draw the single syllable into a world of questions. His eyebrows were drawn together and he regarded Blair seriously, obviously unable to fathom any sort of reasonable reply.

"Look, for one thing, we've met before. At the American Oriental Society conference in Seattle about five years ago."

Jackson paled.

"Hey, hey, hey, look, yes, I know who you are, Dr. Jackson, but it's OK, I promise. I'm not gonna rat you out to whoever it is you're hiding from. I mean, it's pretty obvious you're in some kind of trouble, and I think I could probably help you, but if you don't want to tell me about it, that's cool too. I'm not pushing. I just want to make sure your hand gets taken care of and you've got some place to stay tonight. Christmas Eve, man. I couldn't just leave you in the parking lot."

Jackson looked at him for a moment longer and then lowered his eyes again, a mannerism Blair remembered from their first meeting. He couldn't decide if it was disarming or simply infuriating.

"We've met?" Dr. Jackson finally said.

"Yeah. I asked if you could listen to a tape of Domari. What I thought was Domari. It was originally recorded on wax cylinder by a British naval officer in Jerusalem around 1890, and -- well, anyway. You probably don't remember."

"No." Jackson blinked wearily. "I don't think I would have been very interested."

"You weren't."

"Oh." When Jackson looked up, there was the faintest hint of amusement in the back of his eyes, exhausted as he was. "I don't suppose you have that tape on you now, do you?"

Blair grinned at him. "I got it translated years ago. Turned out it was in Tsakonian, not Domari at all."

Jackson raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah, I know, it probably really wasn't recorded in Jerusalem either, and as it turned out, it didn't even have anything to do with my field of interest." Blair shrugged, still grinning. "Too bad. Ruins my whole fantasy. You know, the one where I heroically rescue the linguistics prof who was too busy to drop everything and do a translation for me, and now he's begging on bended knee for a chance to make it up -- " Blair broke off when Jackson started to look alarmed. "Kidding, Dr. Jackson. I'm kidding. Joke."

"Please stop calling me that."

"It's your name. Now wait, before you freak out again, just listen to me. Whatever's wrong, I've got friends who honestly might be able to help. Isn't it worth a shot? Just tell me what's going on, and if I don't think they can help you, then it doesn't go any further than me. Come on, what do you have to lose?"

"I've already lost everything," Jackson told him steadily. For once his gaze was unflinching. "Now I'm just trying to make sure it wasn't all for nothing."

~~~

Goddammit, Jack thought.

For the past six months, he had done a pretty good job of not second-guessing himself. He had made a decision based on the information he had at the time, and if he had to do it all over again, he would probably make the identical choice. That was it. Period, end of story. Thinking about what he could or should have done differently was worse than useless. It was just craziness, an invitation to take that long walk off a short, short pier.

He was taking that walk. Sitting bolt upright, half dreaming and half awake, Teal'c's solid presence at his side and the roar of the big C-130's turboprop engines vibrating through his skull, he wondered if things could have been different if he'd ratted Daniel out to Doc Fraiser after all.

OK, one thing sure as hell would be different. He wouldn't be on this transport because Daniel would have murdered him on the spot.

But besides that. In retrospect, the nightmares and the sleepwalking were a pretty clear warning that skies hadn't all been sunny and blue in Danny-Land, but dammit, coming down off their addiction to the Light had been tough on all of them. Carter kept telling him that the incremental downward adjustments were too small for them to feel, but Jack knew better. He thought Carter probably did too, and kept repeating those empty assurances because otherwise she might just bite her commanding officer's head off.

Jack had been able to feel it every time they lowered the dosage. It made his joints ache and caused pressure like the start of a killer sinus headache under his eyes. His skin prickled and felt as though it were stretched too tightly over his bones. For the first week and a half he'd given up shaving because he couldn't stand the scrape of the razor blade. Worse than any of the physical sensations had been the nasty little mental tricks, a creeping paranoia that kept him looking over his shoulder when he was alone in a room. He got the impression from time to time that the walls no longer met the ceiling overhead flush and square, but instead that the angles were twisting tighter, furling up like an umbrella. He would catch himself standing and staring upward until he gave himself a crick in his neck, trying to convince himself the palace wasn't about to snap shut around them. Fleeing to the beach outside was no escape, because the hiss of the waves over the pebbles and sand sounded like mocking voices, and the palace was always at his back, brooding and certain of his return.

So it was no wonder Daniel had the heebie jeebies, too. After all, that damned goa'uld pleasure dome had almost killed him.

By the end of the third week, Jack's symptoms were nearly gone. Daniel said he felt fine, too, but Jack had suspected that wasn't one hundred percent true. He knew Daniel wasn't sleeping very well, for one thing, and one night he had awakened to find Daniel's cot empty. After a nerve-wracking half hour search through the winding arabesque hallways of that hideous palace, he'd finally tracked Daniel down in a tower room with windows open to the ocean. He was huddled barefoot against the wall, eyes open, looking up at the slanting roof.

"Daniel? Kinda cold up here, don't you think?"

Nothing. The waves were crashing outside, a lonely, hopeless sort of sound in the dead of night. Jack shone his flashlight up. Goa'uld hieroglyphs in that dialect Daniel had trouble reading crawled up the walls, which seemed to narrow as they reached the ceiling. The angles and the squiggling glyphs gave Jack vertigo and he pointed the flashlight back at Daniel. His hands were clasped together under his chin, reminding Jack unpleasantly of the way he had huddled in a corner of that padded white room when Fraiser and Mackenzie had misdiagnosed him with schizophrenia.

"Daniel." He set the flashlight on the floor and knelt beside him, then reached out and took one of his hands. His long fingers were as cold as ice. "Don't you think you'd be more comfortable in bed?"

Daniel didn't look at him. Jack still wasn't sure whether or not he was even awake. "It's dark," he said softly.

"Uh, yeah," Jack agreed. "That would be nighttime you're noticing there. Another good reason to go back to bed." It was starting to freak him out, the way Daniel persisted in staring up at that screwy slanted roof, so he let Daniel's hand go and patted his face to try and draw his attention away.

Daniel blinked and finally turned his head. His skin was eerily white in the light of the flashlight, his eyes expressionless black pools. "I don't know what to do, Jack."

"Bed. Come on. Stand up." He put his hand under Daniel's arm, and Daniel allowed himself to be pulled to his feet and led back to bed.

When Jack asked him about it the next morning, Daniel obviously didn't remember anything about it. He hadn't seemed particularly concerned either. Taking a big gulp of coffee, he'd shaken his head and complained, "God, Jack, whatever you do, don't tell Janet. You know she'll just hustle me off to see Mackenzie."

Apparently Jack was completely wrapped around Danny's pinky finger, because he hadn't said a word about that little sleepwalking episode to anyone. Honestly, Daniel's request hadn't seemed unreasonable. They were all a little screwed up after three weeks in that place, and yeah, Janet probably would want Daniel to see Mackenzie if he reported a symptom like sleepwalking. Frankly, it was hard to see how talking about the effects of the Light with Mackenzie of all people could have done Daniel any good at all.

Jack still believed that. He believed it even though, armed with a clean bill of health from Janet herself, Daniel had gone straight home, packed up everything he owned in boxes he bought from the nearest U-Haul center, had a storefront lawyer draw him up a boilerplate power of attorney in order to saddle Jack with the responsibility of taking care of his possessions, and proceeded to disappear off the face of the earth.

Could Mackenzie really have seen that coming, when all of Daniel's friends -- when Jack himself -- hadn't had a clue?

Jack's eyes snapped open. He didn't want to sleep. He didn't want to think. He would be as calm and patient and inscrutable as Teal'c beside him. After all, he'd refused to allow himself to feel grief or regret during the past six months, so he'd be damned if he let either in now.

~~~

The sensible thing to do would have been to call the local FBI field office directly and let them handle it themselves. The only reason he hadn't -- well, Jim didn't really know why he hadn't. Probably just because he didn't want the feds tromping all over his home. Despite his protestations, Jim knew perfectly well that was where this latest waif of Sandburg's was going to end up, firmly ensconced at the loft, probably wearing Sandburg's clothes and tucked into Sandburg's bed to boot.

They might as well hang a sign out front.

"Hey man, welcome home." Blair looked like he'd been sleeping, slumped on the chair pulled near the fireplace, an open book splayed upside down on his stomach and his hair in his face. "Sorry I never made it to the station. Like I told you, things got a little weird." He yawned and stretched. The book fell to the floor as Blair pushed his hair back. "What time is it?"

Blair's bedroom door was closed. Jim could hear the sounds of a sleeper's slow, rather congested breathing, and he caught a strong whiff of eau de emergency room, an unmistakable tang of antiseptic and sterilized cotton and steel combined with the sickening funk of human bodies cracked open wide.

"Jim?"

"A little after one, I think," he answered automatically, his attention still focused on Sandburg's stray. He smelled like Sandburg's soap and Sandburg's organic Guatemalan coffee, too. Jim even thought he could smell the painkillers on the sleeper's breath. Drugged insensible, in all probability, and Jim wasn't sure if that made matters more or less complicated.

"Really? Wow, merry Christmas. I guess you already know Daniel's here."

"Let me guess. He just didn't have anywhere else to go."

"Actually he's renting a room downtown, but he was afraid those thugs who tracked him to campus might know where he was living, too. It wasn't safe for him to go back tonight. He asked me to drop him off at a hotel, but --"

Jim sighed. "But obviously that was out of the question."

Blair looked at him like he was an idiot. "Well, yeah. His right hand is messed up pretty bad, and he doesn't know anybody else in town."

"No, and I'm sure he's been making a special effort not to get to know anyone, either." Jim unfolded the print-out he'd brought with him from the station and dropped it in Blair's lap. "Sandburg, the feds are looking for him. Daniel Jackson is a fugitive."

"What?" He seemed so stunned Jim was a little ashamed of himself for springing it on him like this. "But that's completely crazy." Blair scanned the wanted poster, shaking his head. "'Wanted for questioning in regard to the unauthorized distribution of classified materials'? Aw, Jim. Come on. You don't really believe this, do you? I told you, the guy's a linguist, an archeologist. Probably reads a couple of dozen languages, most of which have been extinct for millennia. Any special information he has access to became unclassified three or four thousand years ago." He stopped talking while he read the print-out again. "See, I told you it's a mistake."

"That's not his picture?"

"Well, yeah, it is, but they've got the wrong guy. This says he was working as a civilian consultant to the Air Force when he disappeared. That's nuts. What would the Air Force want with someone like him? What would he want with the Air Force?"

"Maybe he's been translating some of those not-so-extinct languages for them, Chief. You told me he speaks Russian. How about Arabic? Pakastani? Chinese? Korean?"

"I don't know, some or all of them probably, but you're not listening to me here. Daniel's spent his life translating Babylonian laundry lists, not, uh, intercepted Iraqi flight plans or something."

Jim wiped his hand over his eyes. His irritation had bled away, leaving him simply tired and vaguely depressed. The plan had been to come home and have a drink or two of Christmas cheer, sleep late in the morning and gorge himself on the roast chicken and the reshteh polo Blair planned on making for an early dinner tomorrow. The rice was already soaking in the dutch oven on top of the stove.

Instead he was having a ridiculous argument over whether or not the colleague Blair had rescued in a parking lot was, in fact, actually wanted for espionage. "What I believe, Sandburg, is that you're letting yourself be blinded by your friendship with this guy. I know it's not pretty, but it seems clear that --"

"No, wait, see, he's not a friend. I don't even know Daniel, really. The first time we met I thought he was a complete asshole."

In the next room Blair's guest made a soft sound in his sleep, as if troubled by uneasy dreams. Not too surprising, Jim thought. He held up a hand to silence Blair. There were other scents in the bedroom, he suddenly realized, out of place and somehow disturbing. There was one smell he couldn't even begin to identify, but another that he could. Militec, Jim was pretty sure, which wasn't the gun oil he used on his own weapon.

He crossed the living room in a few long paces and opened the bedroom door quietly but very fast. Blair whispered, "Jim!" in protest behind him.

Their fugitive didn't wake up. He was sprawled on his back on the futon, the comforter kicked down past his knees, one long leg hanging off the bed. His right hand was immobilized in a mylar splint and propped up on pillows at his side.

Oh well, Jim thought. He had gotten one thing wrong about Blair's hospitality. Those were Jim's sweatpants he was wearing, not Blair's.

A backpack was on the floor at the foot of the futon. Jim quietly picked it up, keeping his eye on Jackson. His mouth was open, his breathing heavy and slow, eyelids flickering. Clearly he wasn't going anywhere for a while.

Blair was still having fits at the bedroom door, but he waited until Jim backed out of the room before demanding, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Your houseguest is carrying, Sandburg." He laid Jackson's backpack on the dining room table and opened it up.

"Jim! You can't just go rummaging through his stuff."

Change of socks, change of underwear. A pair of chinos rolled up tightly. A half-empty package of over-the-counter antihistamines. A thin shaving kit with hotel bottles of shampoo, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a disposable razor and about two hundred dollars in tens and twenties.

"Jim!"

"Are you sure about this room downtown? I think he's probably just living out of his car."

The biggest and heaviest thing in his backpack was the laptop, swaddled in two black t-shirts. A spare battery was stored in a case. A cord for recharging. A couple of pens and a notebook were stowed carefully in one of the inner pockets, and beneath them was a fat bundle of hundred dollar bills held together with a rubber band. Stuffed down at the very bottom of the deep backpack where it couldn't possibly be retrieved in the event its owner really needed it was the Beretta. It hadn't been fired since the last time it had been cleaned and oiled. Three or four months, maybe longer. Jim was impressed that he'd been able to smell the gun oil at all, but now probably wasn't the time to brag to Sandburg about it.

"Not a bad little M9," Jim said. "Looks military issue to me." He ejected the magazine and then racked the slide. The bullet that had been in the chamber pinged across the dining room table, and Blair caught it before it could hit the floor.

"It doesn't prove anything," Blair insisted, but he looked a little sick. Handing the bullet to Jim, he began stuffing the rest of Daniel's personal belongings back in the bag.

Jim ticked off the points on his fingers since Blair refused to do the math on his own. "One, your professor is living on the road and probably has been for some time. Two, some nasty customers are looking for him, and he knows it. Did he even try to convince you that it was just a random mugging?" Jim didn't wait for Blair to answer. "No, he immediately jumped to the conclusion that the people he's been running from have found him. Three, he wouldn't let you call the police, and I'm just guessing that's because of item number four, his picture on that FBI wanted poster. Blair, I'm sorry, but this really isn't up for debate."

Blair finished repacking the backpack with everything but the gun, zipped it up and then buckled the straps down tight. "What are we gonna do?"

"I'm going to take him downtown."

"It's just so crazy," Blair said again. He buried his head in his hands for a moment. "Dammit." He looked up at Jim with a tragic expression. "Do you have to go right now? I mean, can't he at least get a decent night's sleep before you hand him over? The poster just says he's 'wanted for questioning' anyway, not that he's actually done anything. You don't honestly think he's dangerous, do you?"

Not really, no. Jim was thinking of that gun, unused and stored completely out of reach, as much as he was of the fact that Dr. Jackson was drugged out of his mind on pain meds. It reminded him of Blair in ways he really didn't want to think about. Not a violent man, but push him to the wall and he'd come out swinging. After all, Jackson had apparently taken care of that Beretta, even if he didn't ever intend to use it.

"So --" Blair spread his hands. "We can do this in the morning, right?"

There were so many reasons why that was such a bad idea.

"Please, Jim. I owe him."

Oh for heaven's sake. "Sandburg, you've just told me you don't know or even like the man. What could you possibly owe him?"

"I promised Daniel he'd be safe here," he said miserably. "And instead we're going to wake him up on Christmas morning and turn him over to the FBI."

"For all you know, you'll be doing him a favor. Looks to me like he'd be safer in federal custody than he has been on the streets."

"So we'll wait till tomorrow morning? It just seems like the least I can do."

Jim was pretty certain that wasn't what he'd just said. "Yeah, all right, fine," he agreed irritably. "You sleep upstairs tonight. I'll take the couch."

"Aw, no, I can't let you do that."

"Humor me," Jim said tightly. "I feel more secure being between him and the door."

"One thing, man. You don't run a background check on everyone I meet, do you?"

Jim looked at him. "It's not like you've given me any reason to stop now."

~~~

By the time Jim got out of the shower, he was thinking that it hadn't been such a bad idea to wait until morning before taking Jackson in. Even if it did mean sleeping on the sofa, it was still better than spending the night talking to the feds.

As he was drying off, he caught that whiff of scent again, the smell he'd picked up along with the gun oil. He was smelling it in the steam of the bathroom, and he didn't have the first clue what it might be. Couldn't even begin to narrow it down. Cold and dark, like -- well, like nothing at all. Not overpowering, but inescapable all the same. What the hell was that?

He narrowed it down to the laundry hamper and the wad of clothes on top. Blair's jeans and flannel shirt. There must have been something in that parking lot where he had rescued Jackson. A chemical spill maybe. The strangest thing about the smell was the dense, cold weight of it. Usually chemical exposure hit him like a jittery, pinging excitation, but this was inert, dead. Not the frenetic activity of biological death, either, which was a violent swarm of noisily feasting microorganisms, but true death. Nothingness. Nonexistence. He could hardly be smelling that, could he?

He shut the hamper lid, threw on a bathrobe and stalked out. Blair was sitting at the dining room table. He'd gotten out his laptop, and was frowning at the screen. Whatever he'd dug up, it hadn't made him happy.

"Sandburg, did you notice anything in that parking lot? There's some sort of weird smell on your clothes. I smelled it on Jackson's stuff too."

It took Blair a long moment to drag his attention away from the computer. "No. Just those guys who jumped Daniel. Weird how?"

"I don't know. I can't pin it down."

"Well, I don't know." He clearly had something else on his mind. "Jim, you were right. You were totally right. You know what I found? Daniel Jackson supposedly died five years ago. There are a couple of mentions in archeology rags, and the Journal of Near Eastern Studies had a whole little write-up about his contributions to the field. Apparently he was one of the pioneers in using airborne multi-spectral imaging for enhancing site images in the Valley of the Kings, and his translation of the Book of the Earth from KV9 -- which he did when he was twenty-two for chrissakes -- is well on its way to supplanting Piankoff's."

"He's snoring awfully loud in there for a dead guy."

"No kidding." Blair punched a couple of buttons on his keyboard. "Anyway, his career hit a rough patch about five and a half years back. About the time I met him, I guess. I'm not sure what happened, but apparently an article of his in the Revue d'Egyptologie was pretty roundly panned. He was denied tenure, and it looks like he was dismissed from his last position not long before those obits were published."

"You think these premature notices of his death are related to him taking a job with the Air Force?"

"They must be," Blair asserted with a lot more certainty than Jim felt. "The Air Force probably faked his death so no one would notice such a prominent scholar suddenly dropping out of academia."

"You just said his career was on the skids."

"Jim, weren't you listening? The guy's a bona fide genius. People like that don't just fade away. The best I can figure, he got royally pissed off, felt like he wasn't being sufficiently appreciated or whatever, and sold out to the military."

"Sold out?"

"Well, think about it. Here's this incredibly gifted scholar, someone who's materially advanced the sum total of human knowledge before he even hit thirty, and suddenly he decides he'd rather spend his time helping the Air Force come up with more efficient ways to kill people." Blair wrapped his arms around his stomach, looking both miserable and furious. "It's such a goddamned waste. How does he live with himself?"

"Apparently not so well these last six months," Jim said, but Blair didn't seem to hear.

"You know what's even worse? I didn't even think of this at first, but there have been stories coming out of the field for years now about the U.S. military pursuing an intimidation campaign against certain archeological excavations. Mostly in the Middle East, but there was a famous case in Piedras Negras three years ago where two archeologists were killed and the entire contents of a recently-opened Mayan burial chamber confiscated by men in Air Force uniforms. The story is there were Egyptian-style hieroglyphics in the tomb. If that was true, it would have turned Mesoamerican history on its head."

"The Air Force is going around killing archeologists?"

"That was an extreme case -- usually they just show up in the middle of the night, confiscate artifacts and threaten the people on site if they dare complain about it. These raids aren't random, either. The military types always seem to know exactly what they're going for, and it's inevitably a recent find with potentially enormous religious or cultural significance. Somebody must be pointing them in the right direction, and obviously that someone has been Daniel Jackson all along."

"What in the world does the military hope to gain by roughing up archeologists?" Not that Jim put it past them necessarily, but if Sandburg was right, it could have disastrous political consequences if they were exposed. What made it worth the risk?

"Furthering the aims of the military industrial complex, what else?" Blair snorted, Naomi's son through and through. "That Piedras Negras site is right on the Usumacinta River, where the World Bank wants to fund a series of hydroelectric dams. Obviously the investors didn't want a major archeological find drawing attention to all the Mayan sites that'll be flooded and lost forever once those dams are operational. And in the Middle East? God, don't even get me started. Any find that might have political importance to Israeli or Islamic fundamentalists, anything that might upset Christian fundamentalists back at home."

"I'm not saying I doubt you." Jim was treading with care. "But why haven't I heard anything about this?"

"The AIA is pushing for an official investigation, but who cares about what happens to a handful of grad students out in the desert with, you know, nothing but shovels and sifting screens? That's what makes me so sick. Daniel Jackson started out trying to solve some of the biggest mysteries of human existence, who we are, how we got here, and then he abandons it all, and for what, man? More money, more power, God, who knows. That man sleeping in my bed in there has spent the last five years trying to hide the truth." Blair's expression was savage. "You know what? A part of me almost feels like he's getting what he deserves."

Personally, Jim thought this theory of what Jackson had been up to with the Air Force was a little farfetched, but the matter clearly wasn't up for reasoned debate tonight. Besides, it didn't matter. In the morning Daniel Jackson would be out of their hair for good.

"Sandburg, you're sort of hiding the truth too," Jim heard himself saying quietly. "I mean, you're not telling the world I'm a sentinel."

"That is not even remotely the same thing!" Blair's voice came out as an enraged, explosive whisper. "Christ, Jim!" He stabbed at keys on the laptop and then shut it down with a snap. When he pushed his hair out of his face, Jim saw his hands were shaking. "Protecting the confidentiality of an informant is not the same thing at all. I'm going to bed. Good night."

~~~

Daniel opened his eyes to darkness, and for a few awful seconds, he thought it had happened again. Oh, God, and after months of being so desperately careful. He always left the light on when he slept in a motel room. He always tied his hand to the bedpost. He was even more careful when he slept in his car, pinning the words to his chest even though the paper on which they were written felt as heavy as chain mail by morning, always securing one wrist to the steering wheel or his ankle to the gear shift.

All for nothing, now. His heart was thundering against his ribcage and his limbs felt weak as water. It didn't matter how frightened he was. Eventually he would have to get up from the cold stone floor and throw open the casements. He would have to look once more upon that rolling sea.

Then he realized he wasn't lying on stone at all. He was in bed. Just an ordinary bed, with sheets and blankets and pillows.

Daniel's eyes slid shut, more exhausted by relief than he'd been by that paralyzing moment of terror. When he got his breathing under control, he tried to figure out where he was and how he had gotten there. It was an effort reclaiming memories one by one through a thick opiate haze. That would be the Percocet, he realized eventually. The drug must have hit him like a ton of bricks, because Daniel had no memory at all of actually going to bed. He'd just lain down and drifted off to sleep like it was the simplest thing in the world. Like there was nothing to be afraid of in the dark.

Dear God.

He had to get away. He should have been on the road last night, waited to have his hand treated in Seattle or Tacoma, gotten as far away just as fast as he could possibly manage. He had to get away now. He could do it. His right hand wasn't hurting anymore. It just felt awkward and very heavy.

He gingerly tried to shift his arm off the pillows, and the sensation of weight dissipated like the air, to be replaced by a bone deep agony that made him groan out loud. Aw, shit, shit. He tensed in automatic reaction to the pain, which only made it worse, and curled up in a tight ball, panting shallowly, trying to deny that a couple of broken fingers could hurt so fucking much. He forced himself to roll into a sitting position, and the moment his bare feet hit the floorboards, the bedroom doors swung open. "Going somewhere?" asked a voice Daniel didn't know.

Sure I am, Daniel thought, hunched over his splinted hand, waiting for the worst of the pain to ebb. It had to let up. It had to, because it was simply too ridiculous, after everything he'd been through, to find himself crippled by something as idiotic as getting his hand slammed in a car door. He just needed to get the sling on again, and once his right hand was strapped against his chest, these little changes in position wouldn't be so agonizing. He'd be on the road before morning, regroup and figure out what to do next from a safe distance.

Of course, he couldn't get the sling on by himself. Actually, he couldn't even tie his own shoe laces. He was pretty sure he could steer one handed, but wasn't so certain he could work the stick. Dammit, he should have bought that crappy little Yugo in Ithaca after all. If it had made it over the Rockies, he'd have an automatic he could drive now.

"No," he told the dark shape in the bedroom door. The roommate, he supposed, since it wasn't Blair. "It doesn't really look like I'm going anywhere."

"Sandburg said you'd be due for another pain pill about four a.m. Sounds like you could use it."

"No. I don't want it. I'm fine. Actually --" Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to stand up. The floor bucked and swayed underfoot, and the next thing he knew, Blair's roommate was right in front of him, supporting him with a hand on the outside of both shoulders.

"Steady."

Daniel just nodded. The pain in his hand ballooned for a shocking, unendurable instant, and then gradually began to lessen. When he could breathe again he said, "Actually, what I need is, uh, to use your facilities."

"Sure." The roommate let him go. "I'm going to turn on the light for you, all right?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

He reached for the bedside lamp Daniel hadn't known was there and switched it on. Daniel blinked as his eyes adjusted, and was surprised by the man standing next to him. He wasn't another very young, frantically personable anthropologist at any rate. He had a bodybuilder's physique and a tidy, professional haircut, was square-jawed, blue-eyed and handsome in a thoroughly all-American sort of way.

Daniel wondered idly if "roommate" really described the relationship here.

He touched Daniel's left elbow, offering support if Daniel needed it. "It's right out here."

Actually, as long as he took it nice and slow and kept his right arm tucked close to his body, Daniel found he could walk to the bathroom under his own power. Real progress. The sight of his own face in the bathroom mirror startled him, and he propped his hip against the sink and leaned in closer, trying to assess the damage. Looked like he'd hit the pavement face first. Squinting to try to make out just how bad the scrapes and bruises really were reminded him that his glasses were missing. He hoped they weren't broken or still lying out in the parking lot. Maybe the roommate would know.

Still trying to gauge how quickly he could get out of here, he was pleased with himself for managing to take a leak without falling over, but he hit another humiliating barrier almost immediately. Though he'd been able to untie the drawstring that held up his sweatpants one handed, he couldn't knot it back up. Leaning against the wall, he tried to hold the knot with the little finger of his splinted hand. It hurt ferociously, and anyway, it didn't work. God dammit. He pushed open the bathroom door with his shoulder, holding the waistband of his sweats up with his left hand so they wouldn't fall off his hips. Blair's sweatpants. Well, probably the roommate's given the length of the leg. Said roommate was leaning against the kitchen island waiting for him. The only light came from the lamp in the bedroom, and Daniel couldn't tell if he actually smiled at his dilemma or not, but his voice was tolerant and amused. "Why the hell didn't Sandburg find you a pair of pants with an elastic waistband?"

"I don't know. Maybe he thought this would be funny, too?"

"Sorry." Blair's roommate stepped up close and tied the ends of the drawstring in a bow. As quick and efficient as he was, there was simply no way for it not to be completely humiliating. Daniel closed his eyes. His head was still spinning from the medication he'd taken hours ago, and his broken fingers ached with every beat of his pulse. There was no escaping the truth. He was not going to be driving himself out of town in the morning. Perhaps not any morning in the foreseeable future. Not when he had to rely on a total stranger just to keep his pants from falling down.

All the same, he couldn't stay here. They would find him again if he didn't keep moving; it was horribly inevitable. Just a matter of time. He couldn't, he wouldn't let that happen, but just at the moment, he couldn't imagine how to prevent it.

Maybe it was finally time to call Jack. The very thought made him feel like crying. He'd tried so damned hard to keep him out of this.

"You sure you don't want another pain pill?" the roommate asked.

Daniel shook his head carefully. "I'm still groggy from the last one. Do you know where my glasses are?"

"Glasses? No. Sorry. You can ask Sandburg in the morning. You don't need them now."

"Well, actually --"

"It's four a.m." The roommate steered him by the elbow back into the little bedroom under the loft and sat him down on the bed. "You're going back to sleep so I can go back to sleep."

Daniel considered how much success he was likely to have arguing. He had actually learned a thing or two about choosing his battles from Jack, though he doubted Jack would believe it. Blair's roommate was looking down at him with his arms crossed across his broad chest, and if he wasn't exactly scowling, he certainly wasn't smiling either. Maybe, Daniel decided, swinging his legs onto the bed and gingerly lying back, maybe he could figure out what to do in the morning.

"You had a pillow under your arm before," said the roommate, his expression gentler now that he'd won. "Does that help?" He'd already picked it up from the end of the futon and was holding it out.

"Nothing helps." That was true, but it was also true that lying flat on his back with his arm stretched out straight at his side made it feel like the blood was pooling in his busted fingers. "Well, maybe --" He carefully laid his splinted hand across his stomach, and without being prompted, the roommate tucked the pillow under his elbow to support his arm. "Yeah, like that. Uh -- thanks."

The other man shrugged. "Get some sleep."

He reached for the lamp and Daniel said quickly, "You mind leaving that on?"

"No problem."

He shut the french doors after himself and left Daniel alone in a stranger's bedroom, staring up at the bare wood ceiling. He didn't know if he would actually be able to fall asleep again before morning, but he might, so he had to take precautions. For some reason the pre-dawn hours were always the most dangerous.

Blair's roommate hadn't blinked at leaving the light on, but Daniel wasn't anxious to test his reaction to being asked to fasten a page of cuneiform to his chest, far less the cruder expedient of simply tying his hand to the bed slats. He rolled his head to one side and then the other, looking for something he could use to do it himself, wondering if he possibly could manage to do it himself. There was a braided leather belt coiled on the floor a short distance away. That would work. He could just loop the belt around and cinch it tight. He started to sit up, having almost forgotten about his injured hand for a moment, but the slight change in position brought it back immediately. He dropped his head, swearing as his hand throbbed hot and painful.

Hell, he didn't need to tie himself to the bed. The minute he began to move, his busted fingers would wake him up.

As it turned out, he was wrong.

~~~

There had been a time in her life when Sam had been proud of her ability to drink appallingly bad coffee. Boiled with the grounds over sterno out in the field or reduced to syrup after a night on a warmer at the back of the lab, she'd drink it with a tablespoon of white sugar gritty at the bottom of a tin cup (or paper or styrofoam) and raise an eyebrow of disdain at any man around her who blanched at such awful fare. Yet here she was, sitting on her sister-in-law's desperately chic denim-upholstered sofa with a cobalt blue coffee cup balanced on her knee, wondering how in the world she could manage to get rid of this rapidly cooling glop without offending Mark or Tisha.

The aggravating thing was that she could really use the caffeine. After last night's rough flight--the irony of it being far easier to step across the galaxy than to get from Denver to San Diego wasn't lost on her--not to mention being awakened barely five hours later by her nieces bounding onto the guest bed with shrieks of "Auntie Sam, Auntie Sam, it's Christmas!", the one thing she really wanted was a strong cup of coffee. Not the rather amorphous breakfast casserole Tisha had served while Ashley and Brittany opened their presents, and not the french toast or the fruit salad white with sweetened, shredded coconut. Especially not this alleged coffee. She thought the beans had been flavored with artificial hazelnut or something equally unpalatable, and Tisha had generously diluted the cup with a liquid nondairy creamer which was also sweet and flavored with something intended to evoke nuts. Maybe. Or vanilla, perhaps, or even butter rum. Sam really couldn't tell.

She took another sip, but it was hopeless. She couldn't drink enough of it to pierce the headachy fog that was beginning to envelope her. Though she didn't have the nerve to ask, it occurred to her Tisha might be even be serving decaf.

This is all your fault, Daniel, she thought in exasperation. Here she was spending Christmas with Mark and his family for the first time in years. Tisha must have been up hours before the rest of the family to have the elaborate breakfast ready for them. And what was Sam doing? Sulking because the woman hadn't served Kenyan AA beans freshly ground and brewed in a French press.

Mark had been shooting her worried glances since she got in last night, and he was watching her with concern now, although he quickly turned away when she met his eye. Afraid that she wasn't having a good time, or maybe that she and Tisha weren't getting along. But of course they were, Sam wanted to tell him. She adored his family, and it was wonderful to be here, and she loved Ashley and Brittany so much. She could just use a cup of drinkable coffee, that was all. And she needed to stop thinking about Daniel.

Her brother intervened in a simmering battle over Brittany's new Gameboy, but as soon as the peace was restored, he glanced over his shoulder at Sam once again. She couldn't stand it.

"Just going to freshen my cup," she announced abruptly, standing up. "Can I bring anyone anything?"

"I'm fine," Mark said, and Tisha interrupted, "Now, I don't want to hear you in there doing dishes, Sam."

Oops, Sam thought as she fled back to the kitchen. Apparently she should have offered to do the dishes before now, but it just hadn't occurred to her. The truth was she didn't get near enough practice on the domestic front these days. Cleaning up after a meal with the guys was seldom more involved than scrubbing the barbecue grill and gathering the beer bottles for the recycle bin, and if by chance they actually did need help washing dishes they were likely to say something like, "Hey, Sam, y'wanna get in here and give me a hand doing the dishes?"

She dumped her cup in the sink and poured herself another from the Mr. Coffeemaker on the counter. This flavored stuff was really awful, there was no getting around it, but after sitting on the warmer for half an hour, some of the taste had burned away. Hot and black and burned she could gulp it down, but she was really going to have to give Daniel hell over turning her into such a dreadful coffee snob. She imagined describing this morning to him and the way he would quirk one of his rare, happy smiles at her over the tribulations of flavored coffee and nondairy creamers.

The ache of missing him was an open wound.

She wiped her eyes quickly and looked out the kitchen window at the tiny back yard. A swing set, a border of rose bushes against the back fencing. A lime tree in bloom. When she'd gotten out of the car last night, she could hardly believe how sweet it had smelled in the warm evening air. Such a change from a Colorado winter. Hard to believe it was really Christmas morning, with the early morning sun already so hot and bright. San Diego seemed more alien than some of the worlds she visited through the 'gate.

She heard the doorbell ring, and then the murmur of voices, and wondered if she should present herself for introductions. Hadn't Tisha told her that her parents would be stopping in some time this morning? Sam had to think a moment. The last time she had seen Tisha's parents must have been on her and Mark's wedding day. She wasn't sure she would be able to pick them out in a crowd.

"Sam." Her brother came into the kitchen behind her, looking tense and unhappy.

"What is it? Is something wrong?"

"Some people from the service. They're asking for you. Dammit, Christmas morning, Sammie. Can't they leave you alone for a single day?"

She pushed past him without answering. Somehow she already knew, even before she found Jack and Teal'c standing in the foyer waiting for her. The colonel was resplendent in his dress blues, his hat in his hand, and both of them smiled a little to see her.

"Daniel," Sam blurted out before she could help herself, because she just knew.

Jack held up a finger, one eyebrow arched meaningfully. "Be vewy, vewy quiet," he murmured. "Hunting wabbits, major."

She put her hand to her throat. Oh, God. Oh, Daniel. After so long.

"Merry Christmas, Major Carter," Teal'c said solemnly.

"Can you be ready to go --" Jack pretended to check his watch, "--say, about fifteen minutes ago? They're holding a plane on the runway, and we've taken the seats of three very unhappy airmen who won't be home for Christmas because of us."

"Yes," Sam said without hesitation. "Oh yes, just half a second." She flew back to the guest bedroom and grabbed her toiletries case and her suit bag from the closet. Mark could ship everything else back to her later. She whirled around and found her brother blocking the door.

"You're really going?" he said. "They have the right to make you drop everything and just go, here on Christmas morning? Sam, why the hell do you put up with this?"

"You don't understand," she said. This was Daniel. This was family.

~~~

Blair had been having lousy dreams all night. Paranoid, chased-by-villains, cornered in his own home sort of dreams. David Lash, Lee Bracket, Warren Chapel dreams. Dreams where Jim wasn't coming. Dreams where they got to Jim first. He didn't get a break until just before he awoke, when his unhappy dreamscapes finally changed into the parking lot on campus where he'd found Daniel Jackson. Finally, he thought, half-way aware that he was dreaming. Finally some place where he could fight back.

Daniel was calling for help, and Blair barreled into the men surrounding Daniel expecting to knock them down like ninepins. For a moment he was in the midst of Daniel's attackers and could see their faces, and then he was on the outside again, halfway across the parking lot, and Daniel was still crying out for help. Except it wasn't Daniel anymore; Jim was the one they had on the ground. They were using tasers, and it had gone on for so long that Jim wasn't calling for him any more. His unconscious body jerked and twitched and Blair could do nothing but scream and plead with them to stop, knowing all the while it was futile. They wouldn't listen to him. How could they? They weren't even --

He opened his eyes to find Jim bending over him and shaking his shoulders. "C'mon, Sandburg, wake up."

The light was strange. There was too much of it, even gray and hazy as it was. Then he remembered he had spent the night upstairs in Jim's bed while poor Jim had slept on the couch.

"Blair, are you listening to me?"

"I'm listening, I'm listening." He pushed himself up on his elbows. "Did you sleep OK last night?"

"Jackson's gone."

"What?" Suddenly Blair was wide awake. He sat up and swung his feet around to the floor. "How the heck did he get past you? Jim, man, are you all right? Did you zone or something?"

"No, I didn't zone. I was just sleeping on the couch, and when I woke up Jackson had disappeared."

"Oh, man. Have you looked for him?"

"I just spent the last half hour combing the neighborhood on foot," Jim informed him, utterly unsmiling. "Not a trace."

"How is that even possible? How did he get out?"

Jim's face was stony. "You tell me. The deadbolts were still on both doors and all the keys are in the basket. There's no scent of him at all on the fire escape or in the back stairwell."

"No, wait, see, that's totally impossible. He must be messing with your senses somehow." Blair thundered down the steps in his bare feet, Jim on his heels.

"How would he know how to do that? Jesus, Sandburg, you didn't tell him about this sentinel business, did you?"

"Of course not." Daniel's backpack was still lying on the dining room table. Blair turned it over and opened it up. "I don't mean he's doing it deliberately. Look at this, Jim. He left his laptop and all his cash. How about his gun?"

"I've still got it."

Blair looked in his bedroom. "He doesn't even have his shoes. This is just nuts. Jim, there's got to be something -- last night. You said you were smelling something strange last night. I wonder if that could be why you can't trace him by his scent. Are you smelling it now?"

"I don't know." Jim looked tired and frustrated. "A little bit, maybe. It's not as strong as it was last night."

"Okay. Okay." Blair spun slowly on his heel, looking around himself, trying to figure it out. Daniel's disappearance had made the utterly familiar environs of the loft seem strange, and he couldn't seem to get that dream he'd been having out of his head. He hadn't seen the face of either of the men who had jumped Daniel, but he knew good and well they could not have looked like the faces he'd seen in his dream.

"Look," he told Jim. "What you're saying is that Daniel got out of this room without unlocking the doors or using the fire escape. Since that's clearly impossible, what you're saying must be wrong, somehow. We just need to figure out how."

"Thank you, Sherlock Holmes."

"I'm serious, Jim. It must have something to do with that weird smell. Can you describe it?"

"No. Last night I had a fugitive wanted by the FBI sleeping in your bed, and this morning he's gone. Do you have any idea how much trouble you and I are in right now?"

"Hey, that's only if we tell anybody, right?"

Jim wouldn't even dignify that with a reply.

"Jim, we'll find him. He can't have gotten far. Do you know what woke you up this morning? Maybe you heard him leaving before you were completely awake, and if we can access that memory --"

"Stop." Jim put the heel of his hand against his forehead. "Stop a minute. Do you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

Jim winced and shook his head a little.

"Jim, what do you feel?"

"Like something heavy." He pressed both palms to his temples. "A change in air pressure maybe. Something. Oh, God." As he staggered back Blair sprang forward, covering Jim's hands with his own, trying futilely to shield Jim from whatever it was that was hurting him.

"It's all right. Just breathe. Just breathe." He tried to keep his own breathing steady and even as Jim winced in pain. "Let's just sit down a minute and--"

"Chief, please," Jim moaned as his legs buckled.

Blair was able to manhandle him onto the sofa as he fell and crouched over him as Jim tried to curl up in a ball. "Keep talking to me," he begged. "I can't help if I don't know what's hurting you. Jim, please, can you hear me? Jim!"

"No," Jim gasped. His eyes blinked open, bloodshot and swimming with unshed tears. "No. It stopped. I'm OK."

Blair slumped in relief. He reached out and laid his hand carefully on Jim's shoulder, then squeezed firmly when Jim didn't seem oversensitive to touch. "Way to scare a decade or two off my life, man." He managed a weak smile. "Just rest a second here. No, just rest."

"I'm resting," Jim said, although he was really struggling to sit up. Blair gave up and helped him.

"You got any clue what the hell that was?"

Jim just shook his head. "You didn't feel it?" he asked Blair again, his voice scratchy and hoarse.

"Nothing. Can you describe what it was like?"

"Like this weight. Or something. But it wasn't -- No. I can't describe it." He coughed and tried to clear his throat.

"I'll get you some water." Blair finally let go of Jim's shoulder when Jim nodded in acceptance, and dashed across to the refrigerator to get water. He turned back, unscrewing the lid, squawked, "Shit!" and dropped the bottle from suddenly nerveless fingers. The bottle shattered spectacularly, broken glass and water going all over the kitchen.

Daniel Jackson was sitting huddled on the floor against the kitchen island, his knees pulled up to his chest and his hands tucked under his chin. He flinched at the crash, but otherwise hardly moved at all. His face was blank as a somnambulist's.

"Uh, Jim?" Blair said, his voice just a little shaky, unable to take a step for all the broken glass on the floor. "Found him."

Jim was already on his feet, but he came around the sofa slowly, almost reluctantly. He looked like he was still hurting, despite his protestations to the contrary. He glanced down at Daniel for an instant and then looked away. "Don't move until I get that glass swept up. Don't let Jackson start flailing around either."

Blair wondered just how he was supposed to manage that without moving, but given that Daniel looked just this side of catatonic, it didn't seem to be an immediate concern. What was really concerning him was why the hell Jim had gone running all over the neighborhood looking for a man who had obviously been sitting on their kitchen floor the whole time. Something was screwing with Jim's senses big time, and other than the coincidental presence of one not-so-missing-after-all Egyptologist in their kitchen, Blair didn't have a clue what it could be.

"Throw me a pair of shoes and I'll help you clean up."

"I've got it," Jim said quietly, stiffly. Blair could see him wincing a little as he swept broken glass and water into the dustpan. No wonder. Glass on linoleum and metal was a dreadful sound even to Blair. "This floor is filthy," Jim complained as he straightened up. "How's Jackson doing?"

"I just mopped a week ago. It's not filthy," Blair said, relieved by Jim griping about housekeeping. "And I don't know how Daniel is, but he seems pretty out of it. I guess maybe I shouldn't have talked him into taking that Percocet after all." Blair half-knelt in front of him. "Hey, man," he said softly. "You in there?"

Daniel's eyes were open and they flickered to Blair and then past him. "Where ...?"

"Well, our kitchen floor, actually."

Daniel nodded as though that explanation made perfect sense to him. Blair had his doubts. "You remember who I am? How you got here?"

"Sleepwalking," Daniel said so quickly that Blair could almost suspect him of having rehearsed the answer ahead of time. "Sometimes I walk in my sleep."

"OK. Guess you were sleepwalking, then. Can you stand up? Don't slip on the wet floor."

Daniel nodded and allowed Blair to help him up. He kept his splinted hand cradled close to his chest as though it was hurting him. Probably was, Blair supposed. He was a little surprised by the way Jim seemed to be keeping his distance. He'd retreated across the living room to set the wet broom out on the balcony, not that it would dry very quickly in this weather, and now he was standing just in front of the windows, making no move to come closer.

Blair helped Daniel to the dining room table, where he sat down carefully, his arm resting on the table, not saying anything, not moving except for his eyes which were taking in his surroundings with a thoroughly befuddled air. "We came back here after you got your hand fixed up at the emergency room last night," Blair offered. "You were still kind of messed up."

"I know," Daniel said unconvincingly. "I remember."

Blair was hoping Jim would feel moved to join in the conversation, ideally even go ahead and tell Daniel they knew he was a wanted man. Last night, after figuring out what Daniel had been doing the past five years, he'd practically been ready to haul him downtown himself. Looking at the man sitting at Jim's dining room table now, though, it was aggravatingly difficult to hold onto his anger. He was obviously still off-balance from sleepwalking and probably the painkillers as well, in need of a shave and a shower, friendless and shivering in a borrowed pair of sweatpants. Blair supposed it was cowardly of him, but he didn't particularly want to be the one to tell Daniel that they had to turn him in to the feds this morning.

He grabbed a robe from the back of the bathroom door and draped it over Daniel's shoulders. Jim was still on the other side of the room, his arms crossed over his chest. Blair couldn't make out his expression with the light behind him. "Can I get you something? A glass of water? Some breakfast?"

Daniel blinked at him. "Coffee?"

"Coffee. I can do coffee. Pot of coffee comin' right up."

Finally Jim moved away from the windows, but didn't come closer than the sofa. Blair wasn't imagining it. Jim was deliberately keeping his distance from them. He looked again at their guest sitting silent at the dining room table. No, he was keeping his distance from Daniel.

"Uh, Daniel, this is my roommate Jim. You were already asleep when he got in last night. Jim, Daniel."

Daniel turned his head. "Hello," he said quietly, making the word into a question.

Jim didn't even nod and Blair wondered if this were some hitherto unsuspected variant on Jim's scary cop mode. He was more used to Jim pointedly invading a suspect's personal space and growling threats -- maybe this silent treatment was the one he reserved for recently awakened sleepwalkers sitting mildly at his own kitchen table.

"You take it black, right?" Blair said at last, setting a brimming cup down in front of Daniel. Daniel nodded, then wrapped his left hand around the mug and lowered his head. The quality of his silence had changed while Blair puttered around fixing a pot of coffee and pushing the mop over the wet kitchen floor. He seemed to be watching his surroundings warily now, not like a man simply too befuddled to know what was going on. "Jim? Coffee?"

Jim accepted the cup Blair held out to him without saying anything, but he seemed to have reached a decision. He finally walked to the end of the dining room table and set his coffee down untasted. "I think," he said carefully, "that I'd like for you to explain to me what you've been doing the last six months, Professor Jackson."

Daniel froze, his eyes on the table. Blair exhaled sharply, feeling a little sick at the pit of his stomach.

"It's Doctor Jackson," Daniel said after a long pause. He carefully took a sip of coffee without looking at either Jim or Blair. "I'm not a professor of anything, anywhere. In fact 'Daniel' is probably more appropriate given the circumstances, although I suppose you want to maintain some formal degree of distance before you turn me in. Have you already contacted the Air Force?"

"Please just answer my question Dr. Jackson. Daniel."

He smiled miserably and finally raised his head to look at Jim, his gaze peculiarly unflinching for someone who so often avoided looking directly into others' faces. "How did you find out?"

"Jim's a detective with the Cascade P.D.," Blair confessed.

Daniel continued to smile unhappily. "Ah." He glanced at Blair. "You didn't mention that last night. So is the NID already on their way?"

Blair felt the blood drain from his face. "The NID? No, no, the NID wouldn't be involved with something like this," he insisted, not sure whether he was trying harder to convince Daniel or himself. "It's FBI. You're wanted by the FBI, but just for questioning. They don't even call you 'armed and dangerous.'"

"The FBI?" Daniel looked confused for a moment. "That's not -- Oh. Right. The NID doesn't have the authority to arrest civilians. That's why they're working through the FBI."

Oh, shit. Could the NID really be looking for this man? Oh, shit. "Jim, we need to talk. Right now."

"You have to let me go," Daniel said stiffly. "And if you've already reported me to the authorities, then I need to go right now."

"I haven't called the FBI field office yet," Jim said. "You've got plenty of time to explain to me what you've been up to since leaving the Air Force."

What was Jim doing? Why the hell did he care? "Jim," Blair tried again, more urgently. "I said, we need to talk. Now."

"There's nothing I can tell you," Daniel said. "You can't turn me in to the FBI, because they'll hand me straight to the NID. Just let me get dressed and I'll walk out of here, and you can pretend you never saw me."

"Are you nuts?" Blair exploded. "I'm sorry, but Jim can't -- neither one of us can just let you go. Why should we? Geez, for all we know you really are some kind of national security risk."

"What does the NID want with you?" Jim asked. "Does it have to do with your --uh, sleepwalking?"

Daniel's head jerked up, and then he made a sudden, clumsy grab for his backpack. Jim obligingly shoved it across the table to him. "I already took out your Beretta."

Daniel slumped and didn't bother to open his pack. "You have to let me go," he repeated stubbornly.

"I'm sorry, but you know that's just not going to happen. Jim, I really need to have a word with you right now."

"I'm a washed up Egyptologist. My crazy theories were rejected by my peers a long time ago. How could I possibly pose a risk to anyone?"

"Then why the hell are these people looking for you?" Blair demanded. He just couldn't understand why Jim seemed willing to give Daniel the benefit of the doubt, far less when it looked like he was going to lead the NID straight to their freaking doorstep.

Daniel's lips tightened. After a long moment he rolled bleak eyes up to look at Jim and Blair. "Look, I do have a family history you should know about. My grandfather spent the last decade institutionalized, and I've already been committed once. Lakeside Clinic in Colorado Springs. Check it out. Very exclusive place for only the most valuable nutballs -- no grubby VA wards for me. I can personally report that Lakeside keeps their padded cells very clean. All the same, I'm not exactly eager to end up there again."

"Your former employers are looking for you because they think you -- what-- might spill military secrets in the midst of a psychotic episode or something? I'm sorry, but that's the most --"

"What have you been doing since you left the Air Force?" Jim interrupted, his voice tight. "Why were you at Rainier yesterday afternoon?"

Daniel was staring at a point on the wall somewhere over Jim's left shoulder. "You have to let me go," he repeated mulishly. "You can't turn me in."

"Yes, actually, he can. Jim, for the last time--"

"Does it have something to do with that rare book collection? Help me out here, Sandburg, I can't remember the name right off. Books on alchemy, witchcraft. You know what I mean."

Blair knew exactly what Jim meant, and even though two minutes ago he'd thought he couldn't be any more freaked out about this, obviously he was wrong, wrong, wrong, because now he really was ready to explode out of his skin. "You mean the Bollingen Collection, and no, I'm sure that's not what Daniel was there for."

"Yes, it was, actually," Daniel said calmly. "Before that I spent about three weeks at Cornell, and most of the previous four months doing research at Miskatonic. See? They're going to lock me up as a loon anyway, just on general principle."

"Oh my God," Blair moaned. "Jim, this is not up for debate anymore. I need to talk to you in private right now."

To his surprise, this time Jim finally acknowledged him. "All right." He walked around the table to Daniel and before even Blair knew what he was doing, he'd handcuffed Daniel's left wrist to the back of his chair. "Sorry," he told Daniel shortly as he looked up at Jim with shocked eyes. "You understand my position here."

"No, I don't," Daniel protested.

Feeling obscurely guilty, Blair shoved Daniel's coffee cup closer. Daniel looked at the cup, then up at Blair, and he realized what a pointless gesture it had been. Daniel's good hand was handcuffed to the chair and he obviously couldn't lift the cup with his other one. "Sorry," Blair muttered.

"Sandburg, we need to talk a minute here," Jim said impatiently, standing at the door to his bedroom.

"This won't take long," Blair told Daniel, wondering to himself why he was apologizing. "I'll get you a fresh cup if this one gets cold."

Daniel just looked at him, and Blair scurried over to join Jim, shutting his bedroom doors behind them. He had to take a few breaths before he said anything, trying to calm himself down, but once he started talking he exploded anyway.

"Jim, just what the hell do you think you're doing? Did you hear what he said? The NID is after him! Do you have any idea how dangerous those people are? The stories Jack Kelso has told me -- they operate in complete secrecy, their oversight committee in the Senate is headed by that reactionary nitwit Kinsey, and they think everything they see on the X-Files is God's honest truth. Since the Berlin wall came down those bozos have been spending millions, probably billions by now looking for little green men. Can you understand what a really, really bad idea it is to let these people get wind of someone like you? We have got to get Daniel Jackson the hell out of here, turn him over to the FBI, whatever. We cannot let the NID come sniffing around here. Are you getting this? Can I make it any more goddamned clear to you? Daniel has to go. It can't wait another hour. It can't wait another ten minutes. We have to get him out."

"I think you're right," Jim said.

"It just gets worse! Four months at Miskatonic! A month here studying the Bollingen collection!" Blair paced back and forth between his bed and the door, much too frantic to stand still. "You know what a bunch of stupid frat kids were able to do when they got hold of a live one from the Bollingen collection. What do you think someone like Daniel could manage? And he just happily volunteered the information that he has a history of psychosis. Oh, my God. This is like some unbelievable nightmare. He has to go."

"Sandburg, yes, I agree. I think we have to get him away from here."

Blair finally heard him. He stopped pacing. "OK, great. Finally. I just can't believe I brought someone that dangerous here, into your home, Jim. I am so, so sorry, man."

"I'm going to try and get him across at Osoyoos. Even if someone is watching the border for him, I doubt they'll be looking very hard that far east, especially in this weather."

"Excuse me?" Blair squeaked.

"As long as Blewett Pass is open we ought to be able to reach Oroville by dusk. While we're on the road, see if you can find out from Simon just how much heat is really on Jackson. I'll give you a call tonight -- oh, and don't use my cell phone. Too easy to trace. I guess our story should be that he didn't even spend the night here. Just say you dropped him off at some hotel and didn't see him again, all right? Unless you've got a better idea, in which case, Chief, I promise I'm listening. This is all just off the top of my head here."

Blair gaped at him. "Do I have a better idea? Fuck, yes, I have a better idea! We drive him downtown and turn him over to the feds right now. What the hell's the matter with you? Should I be checking the basement for pods or what?"

"We can't turn him in," Jim said calmly. "Frankly, I wish you hadn't brought him here either, but he's our responsibility now. I have to do this."

"Jesus, Jim, do you realize you are making no sense at all? Daniel is one of those guys you catch and lock up, not that you aid and abet. I don't know what's the matter with you, but frankly, you've been a little nuts since you got up this morning. Your senses have been acting up, you thought Daniel had somehow gotten out of the loft --"

"He did get out of the loft this morning."

"Jim, he went sleepwalking and ended up on our kitchen floor. Somehow you overlooked him because something's screwing with your senses. Do you feel like you have a fever?"

He reached for Jim's forehead, but Jim batted his hand away. "I don't have a fever, and nothing's messing with my senses. And when I got up this morning, Daniel Jackson wasn't here."

"Then he just reappeared. Out of thin air."

"Sandburg, I felt it happen. Shocked the hell out of me. I'm still a little shook up."

That's why Jim had been hovering over by the windows, why he'd had such a difficult time coming close to Daniel. Dear God. "So that's what you think that feeling of pressure was? A psychotic Egyptologist popping out of the ether?"

Jim looked hurt. "I kind of count on you to believe me, Chief. I know what I felt."

"I believe you when you tell me things that are reasonable."

"Ah. And seeing ghosts is reasonable. A walking corpse is reasonable. Having dream visions of a spirit animal is reasonable. These senses are reasonable."

"Yes, all that is completely reasonable," Blair insisted, but he knew he was losing Jim. His face was shutting down, his eyes going distant. "Dammit, it's not a fair argument. Just because a few things in your life aren't completely tidy and rational doesn't mean you throw in the towel! Jim, that man out there did not teleport himself into the kitchen this morning."

"One moment he wasn't here, and the next he was. I don't know how he did it either, all I know is that it happened. When he showed up again he was on the verge of going into shock. Body temperature was down, pulse was all over the place, breathing was real irregular. He came out of it pretty fast, but I can't imagine it was much fun."

"How about that smell you were complaining about before?" Blair was trying desperately to calm down. Ranting never worked with Jim. He had to sound cool and rational if he was to have a chance of talking Jim out of this.

"I don't. . ." Jim trailed off, trying to remember. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Aha, see, there you go. It's just that weird smell again. It's making your senses cut out. No wonder it seems to you like Daniel just appeared out of thin air."

"Sandburg, stop, please. I don't like this any more than you do, but I have to deal with what actually happened here, not what you wish had happened. Are you -- are you going to help me out on this, or do I need to handle it alone?"

Oh God. It was even more serious than Blair had thought. "Of course I'm with you," he said quietly. "You don't even have to ask, not ever. But just answer one thing for me, OK? Please? If I do agree with you one hundred percent, if I believe Daniel truly can flout our most fundamental understanding of the physical universe, in other words, assuming you're absolutely right, well, Jim, how does it follow that it's your responsibility to help him make a run for Canada?"

Jim looked at him, his expression faintly puzzled. "Think about it. He's all alone, worried about his sanity, trying to research some kind of terrible -- ability, something -- that he doesn't understand and I will swear to you, doesn't want either, on the run from a military organization that I also guarantee is only interested in his strategic importance -- Sandburg, if you hadn't found me when you did, that would be me in there."

No. Not ever, not in a million years, Blair thought. But what he said was, "I hear you, man, I really do. Now I want you to hear me. This is the way I see Daniel. This guy's probably been way too brilliant for his own good his entire life. A few years ago he decided to step out of academia and he thought all those smarts would be enough to see him through. They weren't. So whether he screwed up or was just unlucky, the world has turned out to be bigger and scarier than he ever thought, and now it's too late for him to go back to the place where he could be more than just a cog in the military machine. I think I'm still angry at him for turning his back on his real gifts, but mostly, I just feel sorry for him. Either way, he's not our problem."

Jim smiled then, but it was an expression as sad as one of Daniel's. "Chief," he said, and reached out to pat Blair's face, "Do you even hear what you're saying? He could be you."

~~~

Blair's fingers were sticky from peeling garlic when the phone rang. He started, angry and nervous despite the trance music on Jim's stereo and his attempt to relax by going ahead and cooking their big dinner even though Jim wouldn't be here to share it with him. He washed his hands quickly under the tap, wiped them dry on his pants and snatched the phone up before the third ring. "Yeah, hey. Hello."

"Sandburg, put Jim on the line."

Blair sagged a little. "Hey, Simon. Merry Christmas to you too, man. Jim's not here."

"What do you mean, he's not there? Never mind, I'll call him on his cell."

"No, you won't. He left his phone here with me," Blair lied easily, but icy little fingers of concern were starting to dance up his spine. "What do you need?"

"What I need is Jim on the line ASAP. Where is he?"

"Having Christmas dinner with Susan and her folks."

"Susan? Who the hell is Susan?"

"Real nice woman he met at the gym about a month back. You remember, that afternoon we were talking about her."

Lies on top of lies. He was pretty confident Simon wouldn't be able to call him on them.

"Spare me the details and just give me the number where I can reach him."

"C'mon, like I would know."

"You're telling me you don't know how to get in touch with Jim."

"Not right now. Sorry, man. What's the big deal? Jim wasn't on call today, was he?"

"The big deal is the Air Force colonel standing in my living room and demanding to speak to Detective Ellison."

Oh, God. Blair sank weakly into a chair. "What in the world does he want with Jim? Simon, if this is about the sentinel thing, you can't tell him anything."

"Of course not. I'm not an idiot, Sandburg. He and his aides are here about a report Jim phoned in last night. That mugging at Rainier you managed to stumble into the middle of."

"What does that have to do with the Air Force?"

"This is one situation where we're not the ones asking the questions. We're just trying to answer them."

"Are you telling me the Air Force has some kind of jurisdiction here? Because I really don't think I buy that."

"Dammit, Sandburg --!" Simon cut himself off with an effort, and Blair worried that he was playing this whole thing way too scared and defensive. He had to calm down, do a better job of pretending he had no idea what any of it was about.

"Blair," Simon tried again. "This isn't about jurisdiction. This is about extending a professional courtesy. What happened to the man you took to the hospital last night after the mugging?"

"Who, Dr. Jackson? Why didn't you just ask in the first place? I dropped him off at Second and Harbor. He was staying at the Days Inn. Or is that the Quality Inn there? Or maybe it was the Red Roof. Sorry, you know there are all those motels right there and it was getting pretty late. Plus Dr. Jackson was pretty jittery. I kind of got the impression he didn't want me to know which place he actually checked into."

"Have you talked to him since then?" Simon interrupted.

"No. Why would I?"

"You're certain you don't know how to get in touch with Jim? What's this Susan person's last name?"

"Jones, I think."

"Oh, great. Look, just have Jim give me a call as soon as you hear from him, all right? When do you expect him in?"

"Tonight, I guess. Sure, Simon, I'll have him call."

Simon had already hung up the phone. Blair laid the receiver down gingerly and sat very still, waiting for his heart to stop racing, hoping to God he hadn't just blown it. This was why Jim had wanted him to stay behind, after all. Daniel Jackson's trail led straight to the loft, and without one of them here to throw them off, the people looking for Daniel would be after Jim all too soon.

Blair had never been more sorry to have Jim proven right. Who could have known they would be so close behind Daniel?

Well, Jim had. Dammit.

He paced back to the kitchen, but the smell of garlic was sickening to him now. He washed his hands again to get the scent out from under his fingernails. Then, just to keep himself busy until he could calm down enough to think, he wiped down the phone receiver with a dishtowel dipped in a mild solution of detergent. He'd never hear the end of it from Jim if the phone still reeked of garlic when he got home.

Oh, God, Jim. The bastards were so damned close.

But it was going to be OK. Jim had known. Jim had it all worked out. With any luck the people looking for Daniel would spend hours checking out every motel close to the intersection of Harbor and Second, and by that time Jim would be most of the way to Oroville. It was going to be all right.

Blair walked to the balcony and flung open the windows. The snow was melting as soon as it reached the streets below, but it lay in soft white drifts against the edges of the balcony. A part of him couldn't help wishing he had never turned his car around and gone back for Daniel last night. His nightmare was still with him, casting vivid shadows over the ordinary, everyday world. Although, if Jim were right, then the ordinary world didn't apply anymore.

The cold breeze made him shiver, and he shut the windows.

~~~

They stopped at a weigh station forty miles down I-90 for Jim to put chains on the tires. The snow was coming down like a white veil. Daniel asked if he could help even though he knew perfectly well there was really nothing useful he could do. Jim said, "Thanks, I've got it," with grave courtesy instead of laughing, and told him to open the food if he was getting hungry. It wasn't like they'd had time for breakfast before taking off this morning.

He was hungry, now that Jim mentioned it. He reached down and pried the lid off the black box Blair had dumped on the front floor of the truck before they had left.

"Dean & DeLuca" was stamped in gold on the lid of the box. Good lord, Daniel thought. Surely not.

But it was. Truffled foie gras, marinated artichokes and eggplant, goose rillettes, pates de fruits, brioche toasts, smoked salmon, salami rolled in lavender and rosemary, truffenade aux olives noires, chocolate Amarena cherries. He stopped rummaging through the carefully packaged luxuries to look up in amazement as Jim swung himself back into the truck. "This is -- uh, not really what I was expecting."

"Oh." Jim looked faintly worried as he eased the truck forward a few inches and then jumped out again to fasten the chains. "Nothing in there you can eat? Hate to mention this, but it's Christmas day. We're not gonna have an easy time finding a grocery store that's open."

"No, I mean this is incredible," Daniel called to him. Jim had left the door open this time, and a few snowflakes came drifting in. "Not exactly a Swiss Colony cheese basket."

"It wouldn't be." Jim climbed back in, unsmiling, and let the truck roll forward a few more inches. "Pops sent it, so nothing but the best would do," he continued flatly. "Anything in there that isn't flavored with truffles?"

"Well, yeah, the salami, the rillettes, and the smoked salmon--"

"Good. I don't care what Sandburg says, truffles just taste like mildewed dirt to me." Out of the truck again to fasten the last links of the chains. "Times like this I really miss the 4x4 on my old F150."

"Oh. We should have left the foie gras and the olive paste for Blair," Daniel said, feeling guilty. Those were the very delicacies he'd scooped into his lap, along with the brioche toast.

"Nah, he wouldn't have eaten them either." Jim settled himself into the truck. "That should do it. You know, I don't think it's getting any warmer out there. Need some help getting into that stuff?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

Jim ripped open the packaged toasts and unscrewed the lid on the olive paste, then used the can opener on his pocket knife to get into the foie gras, arranging the containers on the bench seat between them. "Pass me the salmon?" he asked. Daniel obliged. The smells filling the cab of the truck were incredible, and he was suddenly ravenous. "You mind if I--?" he hesitated before using the toast to dig into the silky texture of the foie gras.

"Be my guest," Jim said, peeling away a paper-thin slice of salmon with his pocket knife.

"Oh my God," Daniel mumbled around a mouthful of foie gras. "Oh, God, that's incredible." He swallowed and grabbed another piece of toast. "Are you sure you don't want to try this? I think the only truffle is a little bit in the very center."

"I can taste it all the way through. No thanks."

"Neither you or Blair likes truffle?" Daniel thought to himself that he should slow down before he made himself sick on such decadent fare, but he wolfed down another mouthful before saying, "You don't know what you're missing."

"Oh, Sandburg likes truffles just fine. He wouldn't eat that because he's pissed off at my father this year. A little pissed off at both of us, I think. You know how it is." Jim gestured vaguely with his pocket knife. "Do I smell dried fruit in there?"

"I don't know." Daniel stuffed more foie gras into his mouth and went back to rummaging in the box at his feet. Sure enough, near the bottom of the box was a tray of beautifully arranged apricots, dates, figs, pineapple and something else Daniel wasn't sure of. Pears, perhaps. The size of the tray made it awkward for him to pull out with his left hand, so Jim reached over him and got it out instead, slicing through the ribbon that held the cellophane in place and placing the tray on the seat between them as well. Daniel helped himself to one of the mystery fruits. Dried pear, he'd been right. It was as delicious as everything else.

"Sandburg just doesn't get that it's easier for both of us this way. Pops is happier sending an expensive present than a dinner invitation; I'm happier not having to sit through dinner with the old man. I don't see what the problem is." Jim scooped up a handful of apricots and popped them into his mouth one by one, interspersing them with rolled slices of salmon. "You ready to hit the road?"

Daniel nodded, dunking one last piece of toast into the olive paste before Jim screwed its lid back on. Sometimes it made him a little nuts, trying to understand how people could be so casual about cutting their parents out of their lives, but it was hardly an argument he was going to get into with this cop who was helping him escape over the border. He had no clear idea why Jim was doing it, and the risk this total stranger was taking on his behalf made his gut twist with guilt. If he could have left on his own, he would have, and he'd made the offer more than once while Jim and Blair were packing the truck. Blair had finally snapped, "Look, you wouldn't get ten feet by yourself, so just give it a rest, all right?" The truth had been obvious under Blair's angry, impatient words. He was scared to death.

Daniel wondered just how clear a look Blair had gotten at the men in the parking lot last night.

He helped Jim stack the food back into the Dean & Deluca box at his feet, rather less neatly than it had been before. Jim left the dried fruit tray on the seat between them. "Water?" he asked Daniel, and twisted off the lid of the bottle before handing it to him. The snow seemed to be falling harder as they rumbled along the entrance ramp. "Damn," Jim muttered, shivering a little. "I hate the feeling of those tire chains on the road." A snow plow was in front of them, its shovel raised. Jim passed it easily and then said, half smiling, "That might have been dumb. We'll probably end up having to sit and wait for that guy to catch up once we get a little higher into the mountains. By the way, you need to tell me what you know about the people who are looking for you. If they catch up to us up in the mountains, I'd like some advance notice of who we're dealing with."

Daniel set the water bottle between his knees and carefully screwed the lid back on tightly. There, that was something he could manage by himself. "There's not really anything I can tell you."

"That's not really very helpful. Let's start with an easy one. I know the FBI is after you. Who else?"

"Actually, I kind of doubt the FBI is looking all that hard. From what I understand about interagency politics, they may have issued that wanted poster because a friend of the NID with a lot of political clout leaned on them, but really, I have a hard time believing they're actually wasting Bureau resources and manpower on me."

"Thank you. See, that wasn't so difficult." Jim was allowing the faintest drawl of sarcasm to color his voice. "Will the NID come after you directly?"

"They're not supposed to. Technically, I think it would be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act."

"Uh huh. Would they do it anyway?"

"Maybe. Well, probably."

"That's what I thought. Was that NID in the Rainier parking lot last night?"

"I don't know. No, you're right. It must have been NID."

"Jackson, you've been on the run for, what, six months now? So I understand how automatically lying has probably just become a way of life."

"I'm not --"

"However, I'd just like to point out that I'm putting my neck on the line to try and help you catch a break. I don't think a little cooperation is too much to ask for."

"I am cooperating. I don't know who those men in the parking lot were. I--uh--I don't think they were NID."

"Do they know what you can do?"

Daniel felt cold. He tried to adjust the borrowed coat he was wearing over his shoulders, wishing he could zip it up. "I don't know what you mean."

"I think you understand perfectly well what I mean. Sleepwalking. But that's not really what it is at all."

"I do suffer from sleep disorders. Nightmares, night terrors, sleep paralysis, somnambulism, interspersed with the occasional bout of insomnia just to keep it interesting --"

"You appeared out of thin air this morning," Jim said calmly. "I wouldn't call that a 'sleep disorder.'"

The world went gray around the edges. Daniel could hear Jim's voice talking to him, but the words didn't make any sense. His chest felt hollow, as though he hadn't been able to draw a breath of air for a long, long time. His pulse roared in his ears like the ocean. Eventually he realized that he couldn't hear the rumble of the tire chains. The truck was stopped. He turned his head slowly. Jim had one hand on his shoulder and was shaking him gently. "Jackson. Are you all right? Jackson."

"You -- you actually saw it happen?" His tongue felt so thick in his mouth it was difficult to form the words.

"I know it did happen," Jim said.

"I -- oh, God. All this time." He was still having trouble catching his breath. "I didn't know if it was real or -- I have dreams that are so -- Either they were real, or I was crazy." Daniel heard himself give a hiccoughing laugh, and thought he sounded so pathetic and so frightened. "Up until now, I didn't know which would be worse."

"Do you know now?" Jim's expression was patient and calm, watching him like none of this was strange or even particularly unexpected.

"Yeah." Daniel was mortified to feel tears come to his eyes, and he looked down as though that could hide them from Jim. The tray of dried fruits had somehow gotten spilled. "I do."

~~~

Though he'd watched Naomi make it a time or two, Blair had never actually cooked reshteh polo himself, and he kept having to double-check his recipe. It gave him a pang that Jim wasn't there to tease him about it, but cooking had turned out to be a pretty good distraction from the craziness of the day and his own anxiety. The only question was what the hell he was going to do with all the food. The way his stomach was knotted up, he was sure he wasn't going to do justice to the rice or the chicken.

Maybe he should have found another way to keep himself occupied for the morning. He could have patched that little hole he'd knocked in the wall hanging his bike on the rack a few weeks ago. This would have been a good time to do it, too -- wouldn't have to worry about fumes from the plaster patch with Jim out of the loft all day. Save the fancy rice for when Jim was back where he belonged, safe and sound, not driving a fugitive Egyptologist over the mountains in a snowstorm.

Blair had the sound turned all the way down on the Weather Channel, but that didn't stop him from periodically going over and staring glumly at the graphics on the TV screen.

Dammit, Jim. Daniel Jackson wasn't worth this. He couldn't be.

Blair shook himself a little. Thinking that way did him about as much good as staring at the Weather Channel maps and charts. In other words, none at all. He would just concentrate on cooking. He'd already started after all, and there was no point letting all that good long-grained rice go to waste.

He scooped it into a careful mound in the center of the pan, the water-soaked rice sizzling ferociously in the hot oil and broth. The smell of turmeric and garlic and fried onions filled the kitchen. Homey and comforting, as if everything were all right. He folded a kitchen towel on top of the rice to absorb the steam, put the lid on top and turned the burner down to a simmer. According to the recipe, it would be done in thirty to fifty minutes, which was a little more leeway than Blair was really comfortable with on a new recipe. See, so maybe it was a good thing Jim wouldn't be here to sample his first stab at this dish after all. He could think of this as his trial run.

When the knock came at the front door, Blair nearly jumped out of his shoes.

Another rap came, louder and sharper. Maybe it was one of the guys from the station coming around to wish them Merry Christmas or maybe it was a friend from Rainier, but even as Blair told himself that, he knew he didn't believe it for a second. He and Jim had planned for this, what he would do when the people looking for Daniel showed up at the loft, but aw, shit. Shit. They weren't supposed to get there so soon.

Maybe he could do something about that. In fact, maybe it would turn out -- oops -- that he had already gone out for lox and a bagel at the deli a few blocks over. That Air Force colonel would just have to wait an hour or two for Blair to finish his coffee and come sauntering back home before he could ask questions. That would be an hour or two longer Jim and Daniel had on the road before anyone came after them.

His decision made, Blair ducked into his bedroom to grab his coat and wallet, eased himself out the back door, and then took off flying down the back stairwell.

At the first turn he barreled head-on into a mountain-sized man in green fatigues who imperturbably set him back on his feet and told him, "I am looking for Blair Sandburg."

Christ, the guy was big. The only reason Blair could meet him eye to eye was because Blair was standing two stairs up.

"Sandburg? Oh, yeah, right, right, he's a neighbor of mine, but I'm pretty sure I heard him leaving earlier today. You might try the front door, though. The back staircase is really just for tenants."

He tried to sidle past, but was stopped by the big man's simple refusal to budge. "I believe you are attempting a subterfuge," he informed Blair calmly. "Are not you, yourself, Blair Sandburg?"

"Look, I'm sorry, but you've really got the wrong person here. Now do you mind getting out of my way? Shapiro's is closing at one today and I'm supposed to bring a loaf of challah to dinner tonight." He optimistically tried again to squeeze past, but a hand fell heavily on his shoulder.

"We will discuss the whereabouts of Daniel Jackson upstairs."

"I've never even heard of Daniel Jackson, but if you insist--" Blair turned around and took a couple of steps, and as soon as he heard the man behind him following he whirled back, planted two hands in the center of his chest and shoved as hard as he could.

He might as well have been shoving at the side of the building. The big man looked down at the hands on his chest, one eyebrow rising. Blair gave him a quick, apologetic smile, then whirled and darted up the stairs. If he could get back into the loft ahead of this guy maybe he could hold out long enough to --

No good. For all his size, the other man was damned fast. Blair was yanked to a stop, then found himself tumbling backwards. He hit a wall of muscle and yelled for help, but at the first yelp, a hand was clamped over his mouth. He tried to bite, but his assailant's hand was so big he simply cupped Blair's chin and physically held his jaws shut. Blair found himself being marched up the stairs and back into the loft. Some of his wild kicks and blows were finding their target, but none seemed to have any effect until Blair finally managed to ram his elbow sharply into the guy's belly. The big man's grip didn't loosen, but he gave a grunt that might have been pain. Encouraged, Blair tried again, but this time his wrist was caught and twisted behind his back.

"Please be calm," rumbled the voice behind him. "You are likely to harm yourself if you persist in this unavailing resistance."

As he was pushed back into the loft, Blair wondered a little insanely where the heck this person came from. His accent was TV-land North American, but the inflection was off and the vocabulary and syntax were distinctive to say the least. Maybe he had a slight speech impediment.

Of course what his stilted speech patterns really made him sound like was a graduate of Mr. Spock's Guide to Conversational English, Blair thought, and wanted to either giggle or scream as he was frog-marched into his own bedroom. All at once his arm was released. Blair felt pins and needles in his fingertips, and then he was scooped up as effortlessly as a child and thrown onto his bed. Hitting the futon knocked the breath out of him. Before he could manage to start yelling again the big guy was on top of him, pinning both wrists over his head with one hand, holding him down by kneeling with one leg over Blair's thighs.

Blair got out a gurgle of furious protest, but his assailant grabbed a T-shirt off the floor with his free hand and proceeded to stuff a good third of it into his mouth. Then he started to unbuckle Blair's belt. Blair froze in shock, but as his assailant slipped the belt out of his pant loops he told Blair politely, "We are only interested in ascertaining the whereabouts of Daniel Jackson. Please be assured I do not propose to initiate sexual contact."

Blair blinked up at him as the big man tied his wrists together with his belt. The cap he'd been wearing when Blair had first encountered him in the stairwell had gotten knocked off in their struggle, and unless the U.S. military had drastically relaxed their regulations about facial tattoos, he didn't see how this guy could be Air Force, regardless of his fatigues.

Then he remembered his dream of men in the parking lot yesterday, and he started fighting again even though he knew how useless it was.

The man with the amazing tattoo paid no attention at all to Blair's flailing and thrashing. Effortlessly keeping him pinned to the bed, he leaned forward and grabbed the bedside lamp, yanked the plug out of the wall, ripped the other end of the cord out of the base of the lamp, and calmly proceeded to tie Blair's ankles together despite the way Blair heaved and kicked. Then he stood and regarded his captive impassively. Less than five minutes had passed since Blair had first run into him in the stairwell, and the son of a bitch wasn't even breathing hard.

"I regret the necessity of this restraint, but it is of utmost importance that we speak to you concerning Daniel Jackson."

Blair thrashed his head furiously. Not going to be doing a whole lot of chatting with a goddamned T-shirt stuffed in my mouth, he thought, wondering how good this guy was at reading facial expressions. As far as Blair had seen, he didn't appear to have any of his own.

The room flipped over as Blair was picked up and tossed over the big man's shoulder like a human duffle bag. He was carried humiliatingly out into the living room, the blood rushing to his head, and then set very gently back down again on the yellow chair. "Excuse me while I let my friends in," said the world's most polite assailant, before he walked to the front door and released the dead bolt.

~~~

The snow chains were grinding through ice and slush and traffic was down to twenty-five miles an hour. At this rate it would be two in the morning before they reached Oroville, and Jim wasn't planning on trying to smuggle Jackson across the border in the middle of the night. Make a lot more sense to wait until morning, slip across with the crush of holiday traffic the day after Christmas.

Besides, if they closed Blewett Pass this afternoon, they wouldn't be going anywhere fast. Poor Sandburg would be climbing the walls.

"Snow's getting worse," he said out loud.

"Mmm?" Daniel mumbled beside him.

Christ, he'd been falling asleep. Jim reached out and shook him. "Hey. Come on. Wake up."

"Yeah. Awake," Daniel grumbled sleepily, and then sat bolt upright. "I'm awake. Oh, God. I didn't--"

"Nothing happened. But maybe it would be better if you kept talking."

"Yeah. I will." Jackson looked around and stretched his good arm. "I'm sorry. Guess I was more tired than I realized."

"It's all right. Just let me know if you start to get sleepy again."

"I will." Jackson laughed unexpectedly, a short, almost angry sound. "I can't believe I -- You know, this is taking some getting used to. Actually talking about this. Taking it for granted practically."

Jim held up one hand in denial. "I'm not taking it for granted. Believe me. I'm not about to take any of this for granted."

~~~

"Well done, T. Did you run into any --"

Carter saw the kid tied hand and foot in the yellow chair at the same time Jack did. "Oh," she said quietly. "Uh, Teal'c --"

"It was as you suspected, Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c informed him. "He was attempting to exit by the back stairwell and was unwilling to remain and discuss Daniel Jackson's whereabouts."

"Uh, yeah."

"He was most insistent about not remaining," Teal'c explained, sensitive to the unspoken criticism of his methods.

"Yeah, I understand. It's OK." Jack walked over to the kid. Furious blue eyes regarded him over Teal'c's makeshift gag. He was red-faced, breathing hard through his nose, and he really was a kid. Younger at any rate than Daniel'd been when Jack had first laid eyes on him. And Jack had thought Daniel's hair was long back then.

Nevertheless, this little hippie grad student was the one who had charged to Daniel's rescue last night, helped him fight off NID thugs in a parking lot, taken him to the hospital, even put down his own home as the billing