Part 3 of the Saving Graces Series Go here for Parts 1 and 2 Part 3 of 3 of Saving Graces. Part 3 of the increasingly erroneously named stand alone, Saving the Last dance. Huge thanks to Pie - for being Pie, AnnO and BJ - for being lovely, and to Pepe - for patience in the face of slightly dense, computer illiterate authors.

For a guy whose specialist subjects are sitting on his ass translating stuff and unearthing other stuff with tiny brushes, Daniel sure does weigh a lot. God, if I didn't know better I would say he was being deliberately awkward as I try and get him along the hall to the spare bedroom. He is a seething mass of arms and legs, none of them going in the right direction and his litany of endearments, although very touching, are not what my poor heart needs to hear right now.

I am doing my level best to stuff this whole "awareness of Daniel" thing back in the box it jumped out of so inconveniently earlier this evening. One direct, assessing look from the boy as I watched him dance with Carter and suddenly I want to pick out curtains with him? There must have been more in that damn box than I realised. It's like something special from the past you keep in the attic, you know it's always there but as long as you don't see it and you sure as hell don't touch it, it can't hurt you. Well this particular box is well and truly broken open, contents spilled and we're headed for stomping the box to bits too, if we're not careful.

And it's hurting me.

"Jaaaaaa-aaaaackkkkk," Daniel sing-songs in my ear.

I've never seen him this wasted and my uptight don't-need-nothing archaeologist is suddenly full of playful touches and heartfelt declarations of our undying friendship. He is so going to hate himself in the morning.

"Okay, Danny boy, let's get you into bed," I tell my sweetly smiling armful, as we fall through the door of my spare room.

"Well, finally," he giggles. "Thought I was going to have to draw you a diagram!" He plants a big wet kiss on my cheek and lets go of me. He topples slowly backwards onto the bed before becoming still for the first time in what feels like all evening. I stand and stare at him, doing my best impression of a carp - that glassy-eyed, mouth-agape, suffocating kind of thing. He's not just flirting anymore, not just a comfortable, laugh-it-off, doesn't-mean-anything-anyway joke. No, we've moved on into the heavy stuff.

He's trying to seduce me? Ohmygod! He's trying to seduce me!

Well woo-fucking-hoo! Seems maybe Daniel has the hots for me in roughly the same manner as I do for him and my heart leaps and falters in a way that makes me feel light headed - or is that nauseous?

And then reality bites me in the ass. A drunken Daniel Jackson feeling amorous and a sober Daniel Jackson feeling anything for me at all, are two opposites ends of a wormhole. I mean, let's face it, the guy doesn't get out a great deal. Maybe if you have a few drinks too many and you are among friends, even your grumpy, dumb, old CO will look good to you. The guy is utterly oblivious to the way he looks himself and the way people react around him. If he gave the slightest indication that he was in the market for some company, he'd be beating them off with a stick – and I'd be picking them off with a P-90. I have to admit I haven't exactly been trying to get him to open his eyes to the opportunities out there. I know – I'm a dog in a manger – but having to watch him make eyes at Ke'ra made me want to shoot her, even before we knew about the whole here-again, gone-again Destroyer of Worlds thing. And don't think I don't know that Aris Boch was planning on keeping Daniel no matter what he was worth to the Goa'uld, either. A day's rations, my ass!

So, getting Daniel to bed, then a nice cold shower for me are the only things on my to-do list. Regrettably my team linguist is NOT that list, and it's with a sick feeling in my guts that I pull off Daniel's shoes and his glasses while he lies there thoughtfully watching me.

"You're my best friend, J'ck!" he tells me quietly.

"Yeah, you too, Daniel," I say gruffly. "Are you okay like that?"

"Jeans are too tight," he pouts. No shit! I've been counting the hairs on his thighs all evening! He struggles with the metal button a few times before subsiding onto the bed in a pathetic heap, looking up at me through those ridiculously long lashes.

"Ah, crap, Daniel!" I bleat, knowing what comes next.

"Please, Jack," he whines. "I can't sleep in them."

"Fine," I snap and lean over him to reach his waistband. Steeling myself, I grab the stiff denim and attempt to yank it apart, but the sneaky little shit twines his arms around my neck, pulls my head to him and leans up to capture my lips in a brief but all too perfect kiss. His button comes loose and I stagger back, hot and confused, my traitorous tongue greedily lapping the taste of him from my lips.

His eyes are twinkling in the darkened room and he looks deliciously rumpled, sprawled out on the bed like that. I'm panting like I've run a mile with a full pack on. And damn it, I'm trembling!

"G'night, Daniel," I say quickly, and retreat to the well-lit, Daniel-free safety of the hallway and try to stop shaking. When I realise it's not about to happen anytime soon, I march to the bathroom, slam the door and dial the shower to its coldest setting before stripping off my shirt.

I hear a couple of dull thumps from the spare bedroom and pause with my jeans halfway down my thighs. More thumps and a snigger. Crap. What's he up to now? I struggle to yank my pants back up, tugging viciously when my cock pathetically denies the inevitable and struggles to evade the confines of my jeans. To be honest, being in a state of semi-hardness or ball-busting solidity for the last four hours has made me just a tad tetchy with this recalcitrant part of my body and I ruthlessly shove it back inside.

I hear music coming from the living room and make my way there to find Daniel dancing again. He has found the lamp beside the sofa and the muted light throws his swaying body into sharp relief. He's all soft shadows and gold highlights, the hollow of his throat, the curve of his shoulder, the line of his inner thigh and the swell of his ass all hypnotically moving in and out of the subtle illumination. He hasn't bothered to re-button his jeans, they sit low on his hips and it takes all my willpower to avoid staring at the exposed glimpse of creamy skin and soft dark hair. He is breathtakingly beautiful and it's a minute or two before I can get enough spit in my mouth to speak.

"Daniel?" I meant it to come out as threatening, but even my voice betrays me now and I think I can safely say that it was a husky whisper. I'm going down and there's not gonna be a blaze of glory.

He turns to face me, never missing a beat. Somewhere a part of me is stunned by how easy it seems to be for him to stay upright now, when five minutes ago I had to practically carry him from the front door. He gives me a dreamy, closed mouth smile.

"Come, dance with me 'gain," he murmurs, stepping up to me and invading my personal space, but not actually touching me. He smiles right into my face, keeping his eyes locked on mine as he moves with the music. I'm amazed he can keep the rhythm as my heart is hammering to get out of my chest so hard; it has to be drowning out the song.

"Didn't know you could dance, Jack," he says, although I haven't moved.

"Can't," I say stupidly and it's true – normally I have so little skill, Sara used to disown me at functions that demanded we strut our stuff. But for the endless two minutes in that bar tonight it was suddenly easy; each time he moved, I reacted instantly, accommodating him, complementing him like I was born to do it. A thrill tingles through me at the memory and I want to feel that connection to him again no matter what it costs. I awkwardly raise my arms to him and he steps into the embrace and the space between us is like it never existed.

I'm not consciously aware of when the music stops, so I can't say how long we have been swaying like this in the quiet shadows of my living room, but however long it is – it isn't enough – nowhere near. That sensation of safety I briefly tasted earlier this evening has settled on me now like a caress that I have somehow craved all my adult life. Daniel knows me, knows everything about me. Even Sara couldn't make that unhappy claim. I would come home, injured or thin or sunburned and she would look at me with compassion and try to fix me with her love, but when I would wake shaking and sobbing in the night after dreams I couldn't tell her about, I could see the fear that underlay the support in her eyes.

Daniel has been there. He has the same dreams. We have both held the other while the tremors subsided and whispered reassurances to bring the other back from the dark places. Daniel has seen every facet of my personality, the good ones and the not so good. He is not afraid of the blackest parts of my soul. The feeling of safety stems from that, I'm sure. No pretence, no making it okay for the onlooker, just the truth and knowing that they are strong enough to take it; Daniel is the strongest person I know.

My serenity in Daniel's embrace is short lived though, when he starts singing the words to some old Sinatra song. Daniel doesn't sing, just like he doesn't translate Monty Python into sundry European languages unless he is as drunk as a lord. And no matter how much I want it to be true, he doesn't love me either, not in the way I have come to realise I want him to.

I savour his affectionate nature for one more moment, just one last minute, before I have to admit that tomorrow he's going to hate himself and if I don't stop him now, he's going to hate me too.

"Bed time, Daniel," I tell him, disentangling myself from his insistent hugging.

"No more dancing?"

"We're all done dancing for tonight," I say reluctantly, so he pouts and looks a little sulky.

Somehow I manage to turn him and get an arm around his waist to lead him back to the spare room. I watch from the door this time as he sits on the bed. I can't trust myself to be any closer right now. I wish him goodnight, shut the door and return to the living room to turn off the lamp and the CD player before I go back to the bathroom and take that shower.

Then, still feeling the bracing effects of the icy water, all is peaceful as I listen at the door of the spare room. I pad quietly into my bedroom thinking I'll put a glass of water, some painkillers and a bowl by Daniel's bed before I turn in. I drop my towel and slip on some boxers and a t-shirt before I notice that a smiley, smug-looking archaeologist is watching me from my bed.

"Hi!" he waves complacently and...nakedly?

"Daniel!" I yelp, "I thought you couldn't undo your own buttons."

He has the decency to look a little sheepish as he guiltily eyes the pile of his clothes on the floor. "Ah...yes, well movisation is a great thing. Moveration. Motor..." His brow creases in concentration as he struggles.

"Motivation?" I suggest helpfully.

"Yesh!" he positively beams. "Come to bed." He snuggles under the sheets at this point, mercifully covering all the skin that was on show before and making me think that I should just take a pillow and sleep in a cold bath if he is going to be in the house tonight. His hair, nose and eyes are all I can see and he watches me as I exasperatedly run my hands though my damp hair.

"You're drunk, Daniel," I tell him and I can hear the disappointment in my voice. "You don't know what you are doing."

"Wanna sleep with you, J'ck!" he frowns over the quilt. "We do it all the time at work."

"This is different. This is..." I don't know what to tell him. Although this means nothing to him, scratching an itch, right place, right time, it suddenly means everything to me.

"Serious?" Daniel offers.

"Yeah, serious. Ask me again when you're sober," I say quietly as I kick his clothes aside and steel myself to drag a naked, horny, drunken six feet nothing of my dreams back to his own bed.

"Will you say yes?" he shoots back immediately, sitting up and taking me by surprise. I look at him frankly for a second, before the sappy grin reasserts itself on his face.

"We'll talk about it tomorrow," I tell him gruffly, while calling down blessings from any deity, real or imagined, for him to remember this conversation fondly in the morning. It's not befitting my rank to beg, but if, "Oh pleeeeeeeeease, oh please, oh please, oh please!" will swing it, point me in the right direction.

"So are you gonna come quietly?" I ask him and I know the second the words are out of my mouth that they are a mistake. There is a moment of stunned silence, then Daniel shrieks...yes, shrieks with laughter and the whole bed shakes as he convulses with giggles. I try to hold it together, but seeing his pink face pop out over the quilt to see my reaction does for me and I too am rocking with laughter, staggering to the bed to sit down before I fall down. This goes on for a while, every time one of us calms down the other sniggers again and off we go for another few minutes. Finally, exhausted we both fall quiet.

"Daniel..." I begin.

"Just sleep?" he asks immediately. I turn around to see his dishevelled hair and shining eyes peering at me, looking so hopeful. That was a mistake – I shouldn't have looked. He undoes me!

"I don't think..."

"Please, just sleep. I always sleep better when you're close," he tells me softly. "I'll stay over here, I'll be good. Sleep," he explains as he settles into his pillow. Sneaky little bastard, I should call him on it. He's using every trick in the book to get his own way, it's underhanded and it's cheating! I mean, go the whole hog why don't you and... awwww CRAP! He's biting his lip. Damn he's good!

Like a lamb to the slaughter I lie down stiffly...yeah, yeah, I know... with my back to him, and feel the comfortable weight of Daniel-warmed bedclothes settle across my shoulders as he tucks me in.

"Daniel, hand!" I warn and he reluctantly takes the offending appendage off my neck. A stillness falls. My nose is full of the scent of him and I feel the heat of his body on my skin, although he is as good as his word and stays on his side of the bed. He shifts around a little, getting comfy and I'm starting to think this wasn't such a bad idea after all. Maybe I've been reading this wrong all night, maybe he is just a friendly and flirty drunk and is not looking for a quick tumble. I start to feel bad for underestimating him yet again when his voice, startlingly close to my ear makes me think again.

"I can't sleep, can I have a hug?" he asks.

"No, go to sleep!" I bark at him, pissed that he made me jump – again!

"Please, Jack. Then I'll be asleep in no time at all," he informs me, as if this is perfectly reasonable.

"Daniel, I say again, you are drunk and you are out of line! Go to sleep!"

"Would you if I were sober?" he asks, way too close to my ear again.

"You're not."

"But if I were?" he persists. My skin is still cool from the now pointless cold shower and it seems to be hyper aware of the warmth just an inch or two away, making me yearn to roll into his scalding touch.

"No," I lie and even to my ears it's a pathetic one.

Daniel seems to consider this... well he's quiet for a minute anyway. Then, as if deciding something, he scoots up behind me and all his deliciously warm skin is plastered against my back and thighs and he snakes a hand around my waist. His soft hair tickles my shoulders when he snuggles his head against my neck and whispers, "Goodnight, Jack. Love you."

I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and try to ignore the feeling of rightness that washes over me and nearly takes my breath away.

"Daniel, let go," I force out, I don't know how.

"Comfy," he growls.

"It's not right. You're going to hate yourself in the morning and probably me as well," I tell him hoarsely.

"Never, never gonna happen," he sighs.

Suddenly it's all too much - the smell of him, the feel of his skin. I have to get out and I push back against him with a shoulder and turn to face him so I can hold him off me.

"It's not right, Daniel," I grate at him and I throw off the covers tangled over my legs. I can wedge a chair under the door handle of the spare room while he sleeps off this amorous bullshit and then see how much he still needs that hug in the morning. My guess is that he'll be gone before I wake and will call later to apologise.

While my hands are busy with the sheets, they are unable to hold down my drunken linguist who impressively quickly grabs my face and plants a kiss on me that leaves no room for misinterpretation. His hot tongue butts against my lips insistently until I groan and relax into his grasp and he takes the opportunity to slip into my mouth with a possessiveness that shocks me and excites me in equal measure.

"God, Daniel," I whimper when he finally lets me go, his eyes glittering in the darkness and a soft clever smile on his bruised lips. "You're out of it, if I let you...."

"I'm not," he states simply.

"Not?" I ask stupidly, completely wrong-footed by this infuriatingly gorgeous man.

"I'm not drunk, Jack," he quietly admits, his eyes wary as he sizes up my reaction.

"But all the wine and the drinks at the club...."

"I had one Southern Comfort about five hours ago and two sips of wine."

"But you..."

"Do I taste drunk?" he asks, subtly licking his own lips. I copy his action and he's right. I can taste coffee and a slight sweetness, but nothing that suggests that he has drunk what he had me thinking he did.

I look at him through narrowed eyes and now I know it was an act it has all become so plain to see. The sleepy eyes and soppy grins have been replaced by a calm assessing look and his expansive clumsy gestures have become an unnatural stillness as he awaits my reaction. And I'm not a man to disappoint. I yank the remaining sheets from my legs and throw myself out of the bed, breathing hard and at a loss to know how I could have been so taken in by his theatrics. Here comes the reaction.

"Of all the fucking stupid things you have ever done, this one has to be the most idiotic, Jackson!" I bellow. "What the fuck you were hoping to achieve by this I don't know." He just lays back in his pillows... my pillows ...and watches, his expression completely unfathomable to me.

"Are you trying to get me a court martial? 'Cos I'm telling ya, Daniel, as desperate as I am and as good as a one night deal with you sounds, it's not worth my career." As if to disagree with my mouth, the more... interested part of my anatomy makes another bid for freedom at this point. Apparently it deems one night with Daniel is a good enough reason to throw away my livelihood and possibly my liberty. And my sneaky bastard of an ex best friend still just watches me, his eyebrows quirking slightly at the activity in my shorts, but saying nothing. Damn him, why doesn't he fight back?

His silent treatment gives me nothing to react to and this just makes me angrier. I spin on my heels and start to stalk around the bedroom. I want to bang my head on something hard, or punch something soft or...or...blow something up! How can I have ignored all the signals I was getting this evening? Two or three times I caught myself wondering if he really was as smashed as he was letting on, but each time he did something outrageous and totally out of character to throw me off again. Like dance or sing or... kiss me. I've been played for a fucking idiot all night.

"Do you have any idea what you are doing? Fucking playing with fire, Daniel!"

I don't know if it's that I am trained to recognise this kind of bullshit and didn't, or if it's because Daniel did it that pisses me off more. I mean a highly decorated, Special Ops trained USAF Colonel should be able to spot that his favourite dweeb is acting; but I think it's the fact that it's Daniel that had me on the ropes even before the first bell. The guy has been running rings round me ever since I first laid eyes on him. He's like nothing I have ever encountered before and I don't dare measure him by any standard I would apply to anyone else. He just doesn't fit in to any of the categories I know.

Daniel runs when he should walk, he stops to talk when he should be running, he has never followed an order he wasn't going to do anyway and he will not betray his principles, no matter the cost – he basically drives me insane. So he has kind of blazed a trail through my nicely ordered existence like the best sort of tornado and left me on my ass in the mud with a big 'what the fuck?' grin on my face more times than I can count. I guess I should just chalk up tonight to a Jackson F5. But damn it, I'm massively pissed with him still and his smug silence.

"I mean how hard up do you think I am? Do you seriously think that a quick tumble with you is the answer to my prayers? Poor old Jack, hasn't had any in God knows how long, think I'll seduce him and put him out of his misery? Is that what you were thinking?"

Daniel's eyes track me around the dark room, only the light from the hall casts its feeble glow over the bed and my silent archaeologist. I stride around, unwilling to look at him, scared at what I will see there.

"Because I'm not that pathetic! I don't need a pity fuck, Daniel, so you can just get dressed and leave," I shout and move towards him to get him out of my bed. Unfortunately the effect of my dramatic and instantly regretted declaration is somewhat ruined by Daniel's jeans, which choose this instant to tangle themselves around my feet and send me sprawling onto the floor beside the bed, flat on my back.

After a tense few moments of quiet, Daniels head slowly comes into view over the side of the bed. I resolutely refuse to meet his eye and continue to stare at the ceiling as if that was exactly what I had planned all along.

"Finished?" he asks quietly, after regarding me for a while. At least he isn't laughing.

"Possibly," I admit grudgingly. His head disappears and I hear him settle back into the pillows. When I pick myself up, he has turned back the sheets for me in an obvious invitation to join him. I hesitate under his placid gaze before accepting the inevitable and sliding into the bed beside him. Tonight, tomorrow, a kiss, a lifetime, let's face it, it's whatever he wants.

We lay side by side, not touching or even looking at each other. Now I've stopped the whole hissy fit thing, I have time to consider this evening's occurrences more rationally. To go from a deep but purely platonic love to being here in bed with Dannyboy in the space of one evening would give anyone cause for a few histrionics. When our gazes locked on that dance floor tonight, we set in motion a course of events that has been threatening to bubble to the surface for some time now. His recognition of my interest in him and his reaction to it were an accident waiting to happen. So he flirted and teased and kissed me and told me he loved me, testing the waters, pushing the boundaries, making sure, all under the pretence of drunkenness. But the question still has to be....

"Why?"

Daniel rolls onto his side to face me, propping his chin in his hand. The muted light through the open door highlights the gold strands in his short brown hair and makes his skin glow. His eyes are soft and his expression hopeful.

"We don't have forever, Jack," he says simply.

I roll onto my side in a mirror image of his posture and hold his soft gaze. Leave it to Daniel to say something so fucking profound that it leaves me speechless.

"If being on SG-1 has taught me nothing else, I have learned that our lives are so fragile and fleeting," Daniel sighs. "A few months ago, when you and Teal'c took that little trip out to Jupiter in that modified glider?"

I suppress a shudder as I recall the freezing hours spent being carried by the Apophis Express further and further from Earth and hope, but mostly from the man now inexplicably in my bed. The pain in Daniel's eyes is clear as I nod my understanding.

"Thought we'd had it that time," I murmur.

"Me too," Daniel agrees, his voice breaking suspiciously. "It got me thinking. What if one of us died and you never knew?"

"Knew?" I ask, but his eyes give me all the answer I need. Such a depth of longing there, such a sense of devotion. How can I have not seen it before?

"Knew what you are to me," Daniel smiles. "So when I saw you watching me tonight and I thought that maybe I was the same thing to you, I just had to find out - I had to know."

"So... not a pity... not a one night... you want..." I'm sure the sentence is in there somewhere but it's kind of hard to get out with my heart in my throat as it is.

"No," he says with a quiet certainty.

My heart thuds painfully back into my chest and tries to swell beyond the confines of my ribs. "So you pretended to be drunk," I sigh, still feeling like a prick to have been taken in so damn easily. Being around Daniel has always been dangerous to my health as he is so damn flippant with his; I have to make up for his lapses in concentration. But now I have admitted to myself that he is even more than my pain-in-the-ass best friend and he is able to pass off his piss poor acting skills as a drunk and still take me in, I should definitely think about retiring – I'm obviously losing my edge.

I've been quiet for a while and Daniel is doing the lip-biting thing again.

"What are you thinking?" he asks, bringing me back to the here and now. His voice is level but his eyes betray his anxiety.

"I'm wondering why I let you do this to me," I tell him, smiling to let him know we'll be okay. "You've been running me ragged since the day I met you."

"Oh, that's simple. It's because you love me," he says confidently.

"And you know this how?"

"Nobody else has ever put up with my crap for this long before," he grins and I feel my guts clench as the truth of his throwaway line hits me like a stone. I wonder if he realises the effect his words have on me. This is the longest adult relationship of his life; for all that it was a friendship until tonight. How this has come about is beyond my grasp, such a shining soul as Daniel's should never have had to endure the shit he has weathered. Yet he comes through, again and again, with his spirit intact and his integrity further strengthened. He astounds me. This guy stuff is new to me, so instead of crushing him to me and refusing to relinquish him ever again, I reach out a shaking hand and place it softly against his cheek. He smiles and presses into my palm.

"What are you thinking?" I ask in return when the quiet drags out too long.

"I'm thinking we're never going to be able to go back to that restaurant again – I tipped my wine in their plant pots all night," Daniel sniggers.

"That stuff wasn't cheap you know!" I sniff at him.

"I'm worth it," he responds with a raised eyebrow.

"Like truffles? Very rare, very expensive but worth the trouble?" I ask him. His eyes dance as he recalls our discussion in the restaurant. See, I do listen to him! "Well, we're not going back there again anyhow," I continue.

"Why? Didn't you like it?" Daniel looks surprised.

"Food was fine, it was the overfriendly waiting staff that I object to," I tell him sullenly, dropping my hand to the sheets between us.

"What?" Daniel crinkles his brow at me. See? Not a clue when people are coming on to him.

"Antonio Banderas from Orvietto," I explain.

Daniel takes my hand and twines his long fingers through mine."Antonio Banderas is Spanish and how did you know the waiter was from Orvietto?" His voice is deceptively smooth.

Can I admit that I read about the place on a wine label once and recognised the name? "Lots about me you don't know, Daniel," I say loftily, rubbing my thumb across the back of his hand.

"You speak Italian?" Daniel asks and I can hear the scepticism dripping from his lips.

"Is that so shocking?" I ask him, trying to look offended. I mean some of that Ancient he made me learn while I was looping (in more ways than one) has to crop up in Italian, as it's Latin based - didn't I read that on a cereal packet somewhere? Note to self – buy Teach Yourself Italian CD's tomorrow.

Thankfully he leaves the conversation there and drops his eyes to our hands joined in front of us.

"I love you," he says quietly not lifting his gaze from the only part of us that is touching. "Now you know. So if anything happens..." He pauses as I shift slightly, uncomfortable at the turn of the conversation . I know how risky what we do is, I cope with it by not thinking about it a whole lot. Daniel understands.

"Now you know," he concludes with a squeeze of his hand.

I wait quietly for him to look at me again and when he glances, quickly looking away before returning to my open gaze with a look of sweet hopefulness, I lean forward and press my lips against his in a gentle chaste kiss. He keeps his eyes closed as I lean back to look at him.

"Does that mean I was right?" he asks, his eyes still firmly closed and his face tilted towards me

"Right about what?"

"That you love me too?" He opens those bottomless blue eyes of his, sleepy and full of a growing desire.

"Let me see if I can make it clearer for you," I whisper and roll him into my embrace.

He is everything I have been trying not to imagine and more, passionate, considerate, intoxicating. Our kisses quickly become frenzied, our hands desperate to touch, to know everything about the other. Our bodies slide together - match up perfectly and begin to move as one, rocking a hypnotic rhythm in time to our panting breaths.

"Want you."

"Need you."

"Love you."

Our words tumble over each other like a litany. His hot hands trace delicate images on my chest, my belly and my thighs; his fingers count my ribs and comb through the hair on my chest. I am overwhelmed by the smoothness of his body, the subtle swell of the muscles of his back and arms as they flex and contract, ebb and flow like a tide beneath his skin. There is nothing else in the entire universe but this for me: Every sense I have, filled to bursting by him.

We are both exhausted by the emotional hours leading up to this and when our needy moans become sobs, begging for release, our eyes meet in perfect understanding. We can't wait any longer and there is no time for the gentle, thorough lovemaking we both want for our first time together; that will come later. Our hunger compels us and in perfect accord our hands reach between our sweat slick skin, confident and accurate. His hand is big and as he closes it in a fist around my desperate cock I can't help the long, low moan that escapes my lips. He arches his head back as my own rough hand encompasses his hot girth, already slippery with his excitement.

We both know this won't take long and we tangle our free hands in the hair at the back of our necks, seeking to clamp our mouths together as tightly as possible as we stroke the climax we so desperately need from the other. A feeling like fire shoots from my toes and fingers into my groin as I rip my lips from Daniel's and come in explosive waves, shooting onto his chest and mine. Daniel's eyes roll back in his head and his seed joins mine in pulse after pulse of hot thick fluid, covering our bellies and spattering our chins.

If anyone had told me that a night with Daniel would be like this, I would never have let him stay on Abydos that first time. I know we were both married, but my marriage was crumbling and his was sprung on him. If I'd known that he was the one I was meant to be with – which is so obvious to me now that I feel like a fucking fool for not realising before – I'd have brought him home and let him know every day how much I loved him, until he loved me back. Because he would have done eventually: the kind of connection we found in each other's arms tonight cannot be accidental. Each kiss, each touch and each breath were like pieces of a puzzle, the scattered parts of our spirits fitting together to make something that was whole and perfect - something that only we could make and only together.

I expected this first time with Daniel to be awkward and embarrassing and was prepared to have to relearn what it meant to be two men in bed together. I was not prepared for the opposite to happen – it was so easy, almost instinctive, just like dancing with him earlier. A sigh from him, a moan from me, we just knew. And when we came together, speaking each other's names as sweet release sent us spiralling into star-filled darkness, the tremors from our connection kept us clinging together for longer than the post climax shudders.

And so it is that I am watching my dozing archaeologist's face by the blue/green light of dawn as it creeps around the blinds and onto our bed. He's fighting sleep, as am I, forcing our eyes to stay open to savour each other's sated smiles. Finally he snuggles impossibly closer and sighs and we settle down to sleep.

"Ti amo," he says softly.

"Possedete il mio cuore - avete sempre," I reply in kind. He leans up to look me in the eye and I don't know who looks more surprised, him or me.

"I own your heart – I always have?" Daniel blinks at me.

"Well duh!" I grin at him. Well I'll be damned! I love him so much I DO speak Italian. One night of Daniel has done what four weeks of tests and evaluations by the Napoleonic Power Monger couldn't achieve; accessed part of the Ancient download I thought was gone forever. Wait until Janet hears that... or maybe not.

"Wow... that was almost romantic," Daniel says as he reclaims his place on my shoulder and wiggles to get comfy.

"Savour it – it won't happen again," I grumble against his ear. He sniggers, sighs and prepares to sleep. I card my fingers into his hair and close my eyes knowing that tomorrow will bring a shower, breakfast and then as long as we need to make love the way we want to: I'm an optimistic man and although it may kill me, I'm hoping for the whole day.

A muffled thumping wakes me and it feels like I have only just shut my eyes although the light flooding the bedroom from the hall tells me that time has passed. Daniel groans as I crane my neck to see the clock – 6.48 a.m.– so not much damn time. Enough time for Daniel to drool all over my neck and shoulder it would seem as I scoot out from under him.

"Wake up," I hiss. "There's someone at the door."

"Tell'm't'fuk'ff," my beloved snarls sweetly from beneath a pile of quilt.

More muffled thumping ensues and I can't ignore it any longer. I retrieve my shorts and shirt and blearily stagger to the front door. A quick glance confirms my worst fears – it's Carter and Teal'c. My favourite Jaffa appears to be holding a very pale astrophysicist up by the collar of her jacket. I open the door a crack, blinking into the sunshine.

"O'Neill," T announces, looking ridiculously fresh for a man in the clothes he wore last night.

"Guys – it's still night time," I tell them pathetically, letting the doorframe prop up my weary body.

"I told him that, he wouldn't listen," Sam moans, covering her eyes although she is wearing dark glasses already.

"We have come on a matter of some urgency, O'Neill," Teal'c says. Groaning inwardly I let the door swing open and watch them pass into the living room. I close the door with a bang that makes Carter go even paler and follow them.

"What is it, big guy?" I demand, getting straight to the point. I need to sleep, I need a shower, I need them to go before Daniel stumbles in here looking as thoroughly debauched as I look - although I don't think Carter would notice if I pulled on a sparkly Spandex number and started singing "Oh what a night".

Teal'c says nothing, but brings a brown bag up to my eye level. Is that what I think it is?

"I have procured Happy Meals," he intones proudly.

"But... but... they don't start serving burgers 'til eleven!" I protest stupidly. The juxtaposition of Ronald McDonald, a hungry Jaffa, a 2IC who looks like she has an appointment with the porcelain any moment and my fear that Daniel is about to out us in a massively spectacular fashion makes thinking a little difficult right now.

"They explained that to him...he said he'd wait," Sam bleats from behind her hands. Teal'c looks smug as I cast an appraising glance at his vast frame.

"How long?" I ask

"Three minutes and forty-six seconds," Teal'c supplies with a small smile.

"Can I smell breakfast?" Daniel asks, appearing around the corner, smiley, sleepy and looking good enough to eat.

"Indeed." Teal'c inclines his massive shiny head and proceeds to remove five gaudy boxes from his paper bag.

"Cool," Daniel grins and wanders off to the kitchen for coffee. The smell of the fries sends Carter scurrying off to the bathroom after going an interesting shade of pistachio. I'm way too relaxed and smug to care, so I go with the flow and snag one of Teal'c's proffered boxes.

"Why five? Feeling hungry?" I ask him.

"There are five requiring breakfast, O'Neill," Teal'c informs me from around his cheeseburger. "Skank is still sleeping..."

"In my truck?" I yelp, and run to the door with a lot more enthusiasm than I knew I had this morning.

The sight that greets me on my drive has my jaw scraping the doorstep. Skank is indeed occupying the back seat of my truck, his sweaty pink face pressed against the window; snoring so loud I can hear it from here. But that is not what has made me lose the power of speech.

Daniel places his chin on my shoulder as he peers out into the street. He placidly crams fries into his mouth as he takes in the scene.

"Ffffff...," I say. I clear my throat and try again. "Ffffffffffllllames."

"Professional job," Daniel says, offering me his Coke over my other shoulder.

"Daniel," I whimper, "can you see flames down the side of my truck?"

"Yep," he confirms solemnly, so it must be true. Orange flames with red highlights stencilled all down the side of my beautiful truck.

"Very you," he says, patting my ass as he wanders off. Carter chooses this moment to strike up a "Hallelujah Chorus" from the bathroom to accompany Skanks pneumatic drill snoring. Just as well she's a crack shot, 'cos I'm not clearing that up.

Teal'c and Carter have no idea how they have just lucked out by doing this today. Any day up to now and they would both have died a grisly and painful death at my hands, the hands of a man who buffs up his truck EVERY week. But today, well they could have... well I can't think of anything worse than what they have done to my truck, but they will get off scot-free. Until Daniel and I have our first fight of course... then they are both dead!

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