It took Daniel a while to be comfortable with walking into the house -- Cammie's house, Cammie-and-JD's house -- as casually as he used to walk into his old apartment, but he can do it now; it's become, through the process of lengthy osmosis, his own home as well. He slips in, toes off his shoes at the door (Cammie's rules), sets his briefcase down next to them. Full slate of work, tonight. (Always is; he's not sure how the duties of the head of Xenoarchaeology and Linguistics could have multipled so badly while he was on Atlantis; he's pretty sure he used to head X/L and serve on SG-1 and somehow manage to find time to sleep occasionally. Younger then. Much.) But they try, all three, to leave work out of the equation for at least a few hours each evening, for dinner and after.

The living room is dusky, though, with no lights visible. Cammie and JD must be down in the office suite. He's not the only one who loses track of time when he gets interested in work.

So he picks up his briefcase and heads through the living room, on his way to the third bedroom, the one they've given him as a home office. As he's halfway through, though, a shadow moves on the couch, and he nearly jumps through his skin (hasn't precisely been on the front lines since he left SG-1, let his Gate team qualifications lapse on Atlantis, even -- even though that didn't hold for emergencies and everything on Atlantis was an emergency -- but some habits die hard). It's only JD picking up his head, though, and Daniel lets his hand drop from where it was automatically reaching down for the Beretta he hasn't carried in years.

"Shh," JD says, sleepy but perfectly clear. "If you wake her up, I will shoot you."

Daniel squints against the dusk as his eyes begin to adjust. He can just make out Cammie, sacked out on her back, one leg -- her bad one -- over the edge of the couch with the heel planted on the floor. She's asleep, but even in sleep, her eyebrows are drawn, her mouth pinched with pain. JD is lying face-down on top of her, spread out over her, careful (as always) of where he's leaning. It doesn't make much sense. They have a perfectly good bed in the other room (large enough for a small European nation; they have to custom-order the sheets). He doesn't know why she's sleeping on the couch.

But it's not his place to question, and he's pretty sure JD isn't making an idle threat. (Protective and paranoid, and it would annoy him, except he got used to it with Jack -- somewhat -- and he's glad Cammie has someone looking out for her interests.) He nods, and JD puts his head back down against Cammie's chest.

Daniel tiptoes back to the door, fetches his briefcase. By the time he's come back, they're both asleep again, and one of Cammie's hands has come up to cradle the back of JD's head, even in her sleep.

He will never understand them. Never, not even if he lives to be two hundred and has the secrets of the universe revealed unto him (again). But he clicks on the lamp next to the other side of the couch (won't wake JD once his subconscious sentries identified the person moving in his space as 'Daniel'; won't wake Cammie, if she's wrecked enough to be napping in the evening), and he settles down into the few spare inches of space left on the other end of the couch, and he pulls out his ultralight laptop and balances it on the arm of the couch to work on. It's not the most comfortable thing in the world, and there's a perfectly good chair right there. But something makes him want to stay close.

It's at least two hours later (punctuated by JD snoring and Cammie's occasional soft noises of distress) when Cammie yawns, shifts, stretches, and then winces. Daniel looks up just in time to see her twitch her hips. "Ton'a wet bricks, Nielson," she says. "Off."

JD goes from snore to alert in half a second, rolling off the couch to land, catlike, crouched on the floor. He bounces up and sidles into the kitchen. To get a beer, Daniel knows, and he'll come back with a handful of Cammie's pills, oh-so-casual-what-a-coincidence. It's not fair. Every time he tries to take care of Cammie, he gets snarled at; JD has the knack of doing it quiet and unobtrusive, so that Cammie takes it as a given. With JD gone, Cammie lifts her head from the couch and smiles at Daniel; she pokes his thighs with her toes and says, "Hey, you."

"Hey," he says back, trying not to wince at the way she's holding still like everything aches. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she says. She rotates herself around -- lots of little unhappy noises, and Daniel aches for her, but he knows better than to say anything -- so that her head is in Daniel's lap. His hand hovers in midair for a minute, then descends to stroke her hair. She sighs out and lets her eyes close again.

JD wanders back with a bottle of beer in one hand and a fistful of pills in the other. He nudges Cammie's shoulder with his knee. She doesn't bother opening her eyes, just holds out her hand; he pours the pills into it, and she lifts her head just enough to dry-swallow the lot. (Better than washing them down with beer -- he's had to bite his tongue at how casually Cammie mixes alcohol and medication, at how much JD lets her -- but still, his gag reflex rises in sympathy.) That done, she stifles another yawn against the back of her hand. "Sorry, baby," she says, tipping her head back to look at Daniel. "Bad PT session this morning, bad doctor's appointment this afternoon. I was wiped when I got home. You didn't starve without me, did you?"

Daniel can feel JD looking at him -- JD's gaze can cut diamonds sometimes -- and he looks over to see the truth behind Cammie's casual dismissal in JD's eyes: very bad PT session this morning, and the doctor must have seen something worrisome on her latest X-rays, and JD's look is telling him that Cammie's terrified and trying to hide it. Be normal, JD is telling him. Don't ask.

So he lies. "No, I'm fine. I was out later than I expected, so I grabbed something on my way home." Even though he hadn't, but he's still not quite hungry and he has a feeling she won't believe him anyway. "Which means it was a good thing you were asleep when I got home, because I don't need to be yelled at. Amazingly enough, fast food still isn't the spawn of Satan."

"Liar," Cammie grumbles. "About the not-being-hungry, I mean. We got plenty'a frozen meals in the kitchen, you know. An' I know you know how to work the microwave." She picks her head up, glares at JD. "You're just lucky you were napping with me, or I'd hand you your head for letting him even think of fast food."

"I was here," JD says, mildly. "He was there. Contrary to years of popular belief, we have not, in fact, invented long-distance telepathy."

It always strikes Daniel as surreal. He manages to forget -- often, usually -- that this man (twenty-eight, tattooed, slim-hipped, with his free and open smile) is in fact old enough to be collecting Social Security, where it counts: in his mind. That this man is Jack O'Neill. His friend for so long, and there'd been so much they'd never found the time to deal with, and JD never brings it up, but he doesn't shy away from mentioning the life they'd shared, either.

"Couldn't tell it by me," Cammie says, snorting -- she's one to talk; she and JD are worse than he and Jack ever could have been -- and squinting up at Daniel. "Reach me my cane, babydoll?"

He knows better than to argue. At least, he does by now. He looks around him for the cane, finds it shoved down between his arm of the couch and the wall; he extracts it and hands it over. "I'm perfectly capable of feeding myself, you know," he points out. "I did it for years. And contrary to what you might think, the linchpin of the Western Defense Strategy is not whether I am fed at six-hour intervals throughout the entire day."

She uses the cane to lever herself up from the couch, gritting her teeth and breathing deeply as she goes. It's tempting, so tempting, to give her a hand, but he knows better. And JD is hovering (JD's version of hovering, at least, which looks a lot like ignoring, but Daniel knows he could be there in a flash if he had to be) in case anything happens. Still. He wants to help, and it makes him ache that he can't.

Once she's up, she points a finger at him. "I have it on very good authority that the success or failure of planetary treaties used to depend on whether or not your blood sugar was low. Now shut up and let me feed you 'fore I have to figure out whether or not you're lying to me about having eaten."

The space around her eyes is tight, and she's leaning on her cane more heavily than she usually does. "Ah," Daniel says. "You don't have to --"

Cater to me, or cater for me, it's going to be, but Cammie interrupts. "Said shut up," she says, and limps -- slowly, painfully -- for the bathroom.

Once she's out of earshot, JD says, quick and low, "No change in the X-rays, but she's lost another five percent of nerve function. We're back to the neurologist on Friday. Don't be stupid and ask her about it."

Daniel winces, closing his eyes, mentally running down a list of all the possible favors he could call in. And what might possibly help. Nothing comes to mind, any more than it has the last seventeen times he's done it. They don't have a sarcophagus (and the fact that he'd be willing to consider it for her tells him just how much she's come to mean to him) and her condition (JD says, and Daniel believes him; there is nothing about her JD does not know) wouldn't be healed by anything less.

There's nothing he can do. So he bites his lip, takes a deep breath. Composes his face and mind. It's hard to lie to Cammie, but it's possible -- sometimes -- to bait-and-switch, distract her into banter and not let her notice that she's being fretted over. "Yeah," he says. "No. That isn't fair, you know," he says, raising his voice enough to carry. "Planetary treaties always came with banquets."

The toilet flushes. It takes longer than it should for her to emerge. "Rubber chicken," she says. "Or local equivalent. Or so I am told." She limps back through the living room, pausing to collect a kiss from Daniel -- he offers it up willingly, trying to hide his worry -- and to cup JD's cheek with one hand. (It earns her a scowl, which turns into a turning of the head and a kiss, pressed into her palm.) It only takes a few seconds, and then she's heading into the kitchen. "Anybody got any preferences as to dinner?" she calls back.

She doesn't need to go to the trouble. Really. 'Dinner', to Cammie, often means a two-hour production (and there's no way she's in good enough shape to be standing that long right now); there are frozen meals in stock (her own cooking, done up in batches on days when she's good to go and saved for days when she's not; both he and JD are forbidden to touch any appliances but the microwave and the coffeemaker) but with the mood she's in right now, she's likely to decide to fry up a whole chicken and bake bread besides. So Daniel's opening his mouth to insist that he really isn't hungry when JD gestures him silent, with a finger-flick that's long familiar (SG-1 had their own signals). "Rubber chicken," he yells back to her. "You got me missing it."

"Ha," she calls back. "Funny. Nobody got a preference in the next thirty seconds, I'm picking, you know."

"Whatever looks good to you," Daniel calls. Then -- visions of four-course meals just to prove that she still can dancing in his head -- he adds, racking his brain about the contents of the freezer, "I think I saw some chili?"

"You'll be sorry!" Cammie sings out, but she doesn't explain. Then again, she doesn't come back out of the kitchen to call him on his behavior, either, so he'll take it.

When the chili's ready (Cammie calls them into the kitchen to set the table; Daniel has never quite figured out the complicated protocol of when he's allowed into the kitchen and when he isn't, though JD has an effortless grasp) and they take their first spoonfuls, Daniel suddenly understands. He coughs, flails, grabs for his beer.

"Here," Cammie says, "this'll do you better." She hands him one of the warm corn tortillas. He sputters, swallows the mouthful of beer (it does nothing to cut the fire in his mouth) and stuffs a quarter of the tortilla into his mouth, chewing furiously. The capsicum burn subsides.

"JD made the chili," Cammie says, and butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

And this, too, is familiar (Jack-and-not-Jack): the spice tolerance, the back-and-forth mocking, the endless games of quién es más macho? And it's nice to finally, finally have an answer settled: Cammie, who has added habañero sauce to hers.

"Milk in the fridge," she adds, mouth full. "Cut the burn. For pussies."

It had taken him a long time before he'd realized that mockery is a sign of love (meeting her family had helped there; watching her and JD had helped more). And at least if she's mocking, she's not lost inside her head and worried about the news she's gotten; he'll put up with more than a little bit of mockery in exchange for that. Capitulation would be suspicious, though. "I just wasn't expecting it, is all," he protests.

"Uh-huh," JD says. "Whatever."

Once upon a time, that would have been yashureyoubetcha. Daniel takes a swig of beer defiantly, conjuring up the memory (bittersweet, like so many of them) of the man who practically ran screaming into the night from a nice banquet of steamed sand-turtle. Picks up his spoon again. He'll probably pay for this later, but it's not as if this household isn't supporting the Maalox company along with half-a-dozen bookstores.

It's good, actually, once you know what to expect. In dinner, as in life, the cardinal rule is "never let them see you flinch."

In between bites, Cammie reaches over and twines her fingers with Daniel's. He squeezes back. He thinks, from how they're sitting, that she's got her ankle wrapped around JD's. Touch is so important to her, forever-and-eternally, especially on a bad day, and he knows which one of them is going to be sleeping in the center of the bed tonight. (They fight over who has to -- years and years on the front lines makes you nervous when there's no line of retreat -- and Cammie loses more often than either of them, but she doesn't seem to mind much, even if it does make getting up to pee in the middle of the night nigh-impossible for her.)

"Teach you how to cook yet, Nielson," Cammie says.

JD snorts. "Why would I bother? We have you to be our personal kitchen slave. Cheaper to knock the counters down to chair-height if we need to than to pay the hospital bills for the food poisoning."

It horrifies Daniel, the way it always horrifies Daniel when JD makes such casual references. But Cammie snorts (indelicate, unladylike). "Yeah, an' then you'd beg off doin' any prep work ever, because you'd swear they were too low for you."

JD smiles at her. And -- facts and practice and reality aside -- Daniel still defines himself as straight. But JD is beautiful when he smiles, in the way that Renaissance painters would kill for. (Not a fallen angel, either, but bright and beautiful and joyful.) Daniel knows -- knows absolutely; he was there -- that this beautiful young man is genetically-identical to Jack O'Neill, and he knew Jack waking and sleeping for nine years (from the Coverstone to the moment he beamed up to Daedalus, Atlantis-bound) and he never knew Jack at all, and knowing-and-not-knowing doesn't matter: he can't make a continuum out of JD and Jack. Not when JD looks like this.

"Yeah," JD says. "That'd be my plan. Think it'd work?"

"Not a chance in hell," Cammie shoots back. "Just make you sit in my lap, is all."

And if JD-and-Jack aren't a continuum, Daniel thinks, he's looking at the reason why. He'd known Jack for nine years. When he'd met JD and Cammie for the first time -- seen Cammie for the first time, at Jack's graveside, and Sam had told him that he really did know who that young man beside her was -- JD and Cammie had known each other for ten.

Known each other inside and out, but not primarily (most of the time not at all) in the Biblical sense; they've both been remarkably circumspect about the matter, and the three of them may all pile into that big bed every night (and do more than sleeping, besides), but he's never once seen JD look at Cammie with lust in his eye. And Daniel doesn't think about it, because Jack (he thinks) would have. Never sleazy. Never disrespectful. But Jack noticed women, and JD doesn't. But there's no denying their connection, and there's no denying the fact that by now, Cammie has been living with him, working with him, day in and day out, for longer than Daniel had.

There are a lot of things Daniel doesn't think about. (What they are to each other. What they've been to each other. What kind of friendship-bond-love develops when you're not getting shot at daily, and whether he and Jack ever would have, could have, had one if they hadn't been.) But he knows this: if JD knows joy, it's because Cammie put it there.

"We could make Daniel do the cooking," JD says.

"Oh, bite your goddamn tongue," Cammie says, instantly. "Make the coffee, hell yes and thank you. Cook the dinner, no."

"I am right here, you know," Daniel says mildly (bait-and-switch, a whisper in the back of his mind says; old instincts slumber but never die, and if JD and Cammie share a lifetime he'll never know, he and the part of JD that once was Jack share a history that Cammie has no part in, and Daniel thinks the information might be, to JD, like something he read in a book long ago but it's still there). "And I'm perfectly happy to do the cooking. Of course, you have to take responsibility for the consequences. Personally, I don't see what's wrong with pizza. Or Chinese. Or --"

"Or we could buy a fifty-pound bag of Alpo, you don't care about what you put in your mouth," Cammie says, transfering her glare to him, and JD snickers in that you're-in-trouble way.

"I'm moving back to Atlantis," Daniel mutters. "You two can't follow me to Atlantis." Identical looks of innocent hurt, facing him from across the table, and he throws up his hands. "All right, fine, you win. Both of you. You always win. I'm not sure why I bother anymore."

"Ain't home unless someone's bickering with someone else," Cammie says, cheerfully, and squeezes his hand. "You know that as well as I do; enough of our family's come to visit by now."

So much to be said, in that casual 'our'. But he has met members of her family, enough times that he knows JD is as much family as someone who was born there.

"It's why she keeps hitting us," JD says, mournful and tragic. "Domestic violence. Very sad."

Daniel doesn't (quite) snicker, and he doesn't (quite) roll his eyes. It isn't even that they're trying to cheer up Cammie; dinner is always like this. "If you say one more time that bruises are a sign of love -- either of you -- I'm going to lock myself in the bathroom and write tragic self-indulgent poetry all over the walls. In indelible marker. You know, it isn't fair that I can't have a nice simple argument anymore that ... that doesn't end up not being about the same thing it started out about."

"Double negatives are a sign of a disordered mind," JD says, primly, reaching for the last tortilla. "Not to mention ending a sentence with a preposition. You should know better."

Cammie reaches out, whacks JD's knuckles before he can touch the tortilla, picks it up herself, tears off about a third, hands it to him, and hands the rest to Daniel. "You want a simple argument, honeybaby, I'm happy to oblige. What d'ya wanna argue about? You just say the word."

"I don't want to argue at all!" Daniel says, exasperated (having his grammar corrected always makes him touchy). He barely notices that he's tearing the sundered tortilla in half and dropping one piece on Cammie's plate; she loves cooking and loves eating and watches her caloric intake like a hawk, and sometimes she goes too far in the other direction. Then he realizes what he just said, and makes a noise that's half groan, half sigh. "There! See? You're doing it again!" He shoves the tortilla in his mouth and drops his head into his hands. "I'm losing my mind," he says, indistinctly, chewing. "Or you two have stolen it."

"We'll look for it later," JD says. "Probably under the couch. Mitchell, you gonna eat that?"

"Yes," Cammie says, promptly. She picks up the tortilla, licks it (one long broad stripe from edge to edge), and puts it back down on her plate. Then tears off a corner and uses it to scoop up the last bite of her chili. She pats Daniel on the back with her other hand. "An' it's all right, baby mine, nobody here loves you for your mind, anyway. You just keep on smiling and looking pretty."

It's one thing to feel (comfortable and secure) as though he's wanted for something other than his ability to solve the secrets of the galaxy (pick one, any one) in the next two hours before they're all dead. It's entirely another to be told (by implication, and only the fact that he knows she doesn't mean it keeps it from being hurtful) that his function in this household is apparently to be decorative. He's just mustering up the energy to frame a suitably-bantering response when JD pounces on the tortilla still on her plate, tears it in half, drops half of it back, swipes the other half around his bowl, and stuffs it into his mouth, and Daniel gets distracted.

"I can't believe you just did that," Daniel says, from between his fingers. "I can't believe I saw you just do that. She licked it."

"Didn't work, either," Cammie says, darkly. And she is forty-five and he is twenty-eight (or sixty-three; depends on how you squint), and they sound like nothing more than a pair of twelve-year-old boys.

At least his life isn't boring.

"Gotta do better'n that, Mitchell," JD says. He bounces to his feet, collecting empty plates and bowls and stacking them on the counter; it's Daniel's turn to do the dishes, but JD's incapable of staying at the table for more than one minute past when he's done eating.

"Spit on it next time," Cammie mutters.

JD laughs. "You can try that, sure. See how far it gets you."

"I am never eating here again," Daniel groans. At least they didn't actually start a food fight this time.

JD opens the freezer and stares into it, raptly, as though he's prospecting for the secrets of the universe. Cammie snorts. "We got us central air, you ain't cold enough," she says. "Or you can just open a window."

"There isn't any ice cream," JD says, in the injured and aggrieved tones of someone who suspects the universe of conspiring against him.

"Says the man who swore he'd starve if he didn't have it for breakfast," Cammie shoots right back.

"Start the day with dessert, means you can't be too upset about being out of bed," JD counters, and in his own way, Daniel will never get tired of hearing this; they've trained him to recognize it as the sound of home.

"It's a wonder you ain't seven hundred pounds, way you eat," Cammie mutters. Darkly. And Daniel never knew her before the accident over Antarctica, but Sam had, and from what Sam's said, Cammie used to have an appetite to match. He's seen pictures of her, snapshot moments in amber -- tanned golden and muscular and smiling, her flight helmet under an arm; in a damp Air Force t-shirt and sweats, her face flushed but happy, in the process of stealing a basketball from the opposing team -- and suddenly he wonders what else she misses.

So he says, "Oh, don't worry. It'll all catch up to him the instant he turns fifty."

He speaks from personal knowledge, even. And where that would have earned Cammie a "fuck you, Mitchell" -- if this household had a swear jar they'd all be rich -- it just earns Daniel a halfhearted scowl; JD must have realized he was walking on dangerous ground an instant too late. "This household needs ice cream," JD declares, decisively. "Anybody need anything else while I'm out?"

"New body from the grocery store," Cammie mutters, but it's quiet enough that they can ignore it, which both of them do. And Daniel realizes, suddenly, what JD's doing; whether or not he really wants ice cream (and JD usually wants ice cream, or chocolate, or candy, thanks to a combination of a sweet tooth and an overclocked metabolism), he's going out not primarily to obtain it, but to give Cammie and Daniel some time for Cammie to deliver the doctor's news.

Sam always used to quote Newton's Laws when she really wanted to swear instead; Daniel used to find himself reciting them at odd moments on Atlantis (garnering him odder looks). A body in motion tends to stay in motion; a body at rest tends to stay at rest. Unless it's JD, in which case a body at rest tends to explode into motion at the blink of an eye. This is one of those times. An ice cream run having been decided on, JD is shod and shirted and jacketed and out the door in under two minutes. Daniel starts to get up. House rules, and one of the few things he understands about the kitchen; she who cooks does not clean. And Cammie will find it easier to talk to him if he's not looking at her, he thinks.

But she puts a hand on his wrist, instead, and she settles back down. Not doing anything the easy way, today, apparently.

"Didn't get the best news today," she says. She looks away. Then -- he watches her -- makes herself look back. "Doctor wants to talk about cutting again."

He is not -- not, goddamn it -- going to panic. This possibility has been lurking there, around the edges and behind the corners, for as long as he's known her. She'll let him know when it's time to panic. Or JD will, because both of them ignore their own hurts and downplay the other's, but if the situation is dire, JD will goddamn tell him. "Um," he says. "Yeah, ah, what ...?"

Great work, Jackson. Grace and charm and coolness under pressure. She smiles. It's painful to watch, and painful (he thinks) for her to have to do it. "Just wants me to get used to the idea," she says. "In case they decide they have to."

He doesn't know all her medical details. Just what she's told him. JD is the one to take her to appointments, hold her hand, quiz her doctors; Daniel's never asked. He doesn't even know how she got hurt, really. Crashed saving SG-1 and saving Earth (and there's guilt, there, but he doesn't think about it). He's seen her Medal of Honor, seen the flag she's kept, carefully folded, both of them tucked away in her lingerie drawer. He's also seen her scars and her scuff-marks, and he knows she's got spinal damage, and this isn't a fairy tale with a happy ending; her injuries will get worse over time (probably) because (if nothing else) gravity is a bitch.

He wants to say that he doesn't care if she's in a wheelchair. Or an iron lung. But he doesn't know how to say it and make the words come out right. He takes her hand, and holds it, and wishes he did. "Tell me if you can think of any way I can help," he says, and it comes out steady, and he won't look away. "Other than cooking."

Cammie smiles. It only wavers a little. "Not much any man could, unless you or himself do manage to pick me up that new body at the corner store like I keep asking," she says. "An' at least --" She stops herself -- hard -- and her eyes flicker away; he wants to know what she was going to say, so badly, but he won't ask. "Just promise me you won't trade me in on a younger model one'a these days," she says, instead.

"Oh, God, no," Daniel blurts, before he can think about it, and if it's not practiced or smooth or perfect, it's at least honest, and Cammie (he knows) values honest above all else. "I wouldn't -- I can't think of anything that would make -- No. No."

She breathes out, sharp and sudden. "Yeah. Okay. Might not get there. Don't know. There's a guy up in Portland, doing some work with this kind of trauma. Better than the bits of offworld tech they've managed to clear through to the Academy hospital, even. Doc's talking about sending him my films, see what he says. Jury's still out."

Daniel doesn't go through the Gate anymore. He's a consultant, an administrator, the Living Legend up on 17 (his way of keeping faith with Jack's memory, really; he has influence, a lot of it, and he spends its coin as widely and as wisely as he can to push the Program in the right directions since Jack isn't there to do it anymore). Right now, this instant, he'd stage a mutiny, shoot anyone who got in his way, take over the control room, and head through the Gate to scour the last remaining bits of the Goa'uld Empire for a sarcophagus to get Cammie into. No matter what the cost.

"We'll figure it out," he says. "Whatever winds up happening, we can get through it."

The two of them. The three of them. He's starting to almost be comfortable with the thought that their relationship doesn't fit into neat patterns.

He squeezes her fingers. "If it's --" Money, he's about to say (root of all evil, but it opens doors), but he stops himself. He'll ask JD about that one first; he's sure JD will know what's necessary and -- more to the point -- how to get Cammie to accept any of Daniel's money she might need. "If it's a problem with security, or clearances, or getting stuff out of the Mountain, let me know, okay? I still know where a couple of bodies are buried." More to the point, he knows where to whore himself if he has to. All perfectly above-board and in the service of his country, of course. Just a different set of three letters.

"Burn that bridge after the horse's been stolen," Cammie says. She breathes out a sigh and pats his hand. Conversation over, and he knows it, and so he gets up and heads over to the sink. You rinse the dishes before you load them in the dishwasher; the ways of kitchen appliances are counter-intuitive.

"An' thanks for lettin' me tell you in my own way," she says, to his back. "'Cause I know himself already told you."

God knows how she manages to know. People always used to accuse him and Jack of having telepathy, but this is not the first time he's seen her and JD communicate information from separate rooms. "I admit nothing," he says. He opens the dishwasher, starts to load it. "Dammit," he follows up with, mildly (conversation over, back to normal operating procedures, and he's telling her by word and deed that he's not going to worry, and it's a lie but it's the kind of lie she forgives). "I could have asked him to pick me up a box of granola bars while he was out. Easier than looking for a deli."

"Put it on the list," Cammie says. "Coming home for dinner? Even easier."

"I'll try that sometime," Daniel says. He finds the soap, fills the reservoir, shuts the door, and starts the dishwasher running.

"Should," she says, heartlessly. "Else you'll come home one day and find that himself has eaten us out of house and home and there's nothing left."

"Then I'll just turn right around and go to McDonald's," he says, and follows it up with "ow, don't hit me" as a wadded-up napkin bounces off the back of his head.

"Had it coming," she says, and levers herself to standing, slowly and with a great deal of wincing. "I'm for the bathtub. You two feel like joining me when himself gets back with the ice cream, you know where it is."

"Yeah," Daniel says. "If you want me to scrub your back, just yell." She would anyway. The house (at first he thought it was a luxury; then he'd realized it was a safeguard against a future that please-God won't ever happen) is outfitted with intercoms everywhere, along with its many other far-more-high-tech upgrades; yelling isn't actually necessary. Despite this, both Cammie and JD ignore them most of the time, relying on pure lung power (at a decibel level that can rattle windows) to make their wishes, feelings, and needs known to the run of common humanity. Usually they respect mornings. Usually.

JD, he thinks, darkly, fits right in with the Mitchell family. He wonders if it's because it's what his own -- Jack's -- family was like. He doesn't know anything at all about Jack's family: not the names of his parents, not even whether he had brothers or sisters. (None he saw to recognize at the funeral, but how would he know?) JD knows that information. Daniel won't ask. It's interesting, though. He knows four facts about Jack's personal past, from before the Stargate program: that Jack once said he was from Chicago, that Jack owned a cabin in Minnesota, that Jack was married to a woman named Sara (he'd met her once, in passing), that Jack had a son named Charlie. Nothing more. Every other detail he ever knew was about Jack's career, and even then, they were few and far between.

He's finishing up wiping down the counter when the front door opens and shuts again, and a minute later JD comes in on cat feet (never makes noise, not unless he wants to) to deposit half-a-dozen pints of Ben & Jerry's (two New York Super Fudge Chunk frozen yogurt for Cammie, two Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough for Daniel, two Phish Food for himself) in the freezer. Then he grabs another kitchen rag and starts scrubbing the table. "Herself all right?" he asks, jerking his chin in (Daniel sighs; of course he knows) the exact direction of the bathroom.

"Yeah," Daniel says. "No. I don't know. There wasn't any crying, and she threw a napkin at me."

JD nods. "She's all right, then," he says. Firm and solid, bedrock faith.

"Yeah," Daniel says. "Good. I need --" He stops himself. They can talk about money and plans later. "It can wait. She said we could join her in the bathtub when you got back."

"With ice cream or without?" JD asks. The interesting (bordering on freakish) thing about JD is the way he takes you at your word, exactly. If you tell him something can wait, you'd better be telling the truth.

Daniel frowns. "I don't actually know," he confesses. "Should I ask?"

JD makes a 'well, duh' face. "If you don't, you're either coming back out for it or giving her some of yours. She isn't getting any of the Phish Food."

"She spurns the Cookie Dough," Daniel says (dough's too waxy, Cammie says). "So I'd better bring hers, too."

Getting three pints of ice cream and the accompanying spoons into the bathroom isn't too much of a hassle when you've got two people to do the carrying. There are some things their non-standard household excels at, and one of them is accomplishing anything that requires an extra pair of hands. Cammie's drowsing in the Jacuzzi tub (which is big enough for three, just barely, if they're friendly); Daniel quickly tries to soften his footfalls, but she's already opening her eyes. (Paranoid. Cautious. Trained by JD. Pick one, or all; it's only when she's at her most wiped-out that she doesn't wake when someone moves. Theirs is a jumpy household.)

"You brought the ice cream," she says, happily. JD's balancing the pints on the edge of the tub, shucking off his clothes. The glory of his ink (and Daniel can read it, some of it, but there are entire other sections that are and always will be a mystery to him, and he thinks Cammie might know it all, and he would be jealous that his girlfriend knows someone else so intimately, jealous that his whatever-Jack-was-to-him has told Cammie things he'll never tell Daniel, except it's been like that from the start) never fails to make Daniel want to stop and stare, and if he never thought he could be this fascinated by a male body, well, he's doing lots of things he never thought he would.

Daniel picks up the pint of JD's Phish Food and hands it to Cammie, along with a spoon, and pulls his shirt over his head as well. Theirs has never been a household that holds with body modesty. Strange, at first, and now it's second-nature. "You can have his," Daniel says. "He said you could."

JD cups his hand against the surface of the water, sends a handful of droplets in Daniel's direction. "Did not," he says.

Cammie's already opening it, though, digging in her spoon. "Just a taste," she says.

"Your last 'just-a-taste' involved half the pint. And all the fudge." JD scowls at her.

"You'd think they were going to stop making it," Daniel says, easing down into the water. "Or that there isn't a second pint in the freezer." He reaches for his own ice cream and JD whisks it out of reach.

"Anybody drops ice cream into this tub is sleeping in the garage tonight," Cammie says around her spoon in her mouth.

Daniel reaches out again; JD hands over the ice cream and (purely by accident of course) drops the spoon into the tub. Daniel fishes it out. "The same level of sophistication and maturity as your clients," he says.

"I think he just compared us to government employees," Cammie says. "I'd hit him, but I'm too busy eatin' your ice cream."

JD fits himself into the tub between them, sideways, his legs draped up and over the side. (Most supple of the three of them. Least scarred.) He begins negotiating with Cammie for the return of his dessert. If Daniel were attempting to identify information about the age of the speakers purely from a transcript (not a tape), he'd have to say ... twelve? Eight? Because any observer would be certain of the fact that Cammie's cherry-picking of "the good parts" out of JD's ice cream is a criminal act equal in atrocity to the annexation of Poland. And his potential retaliation (cruising the Super Fudge Chunk for targets of opportunity) is a wholly-unprovoked assault on a helpless neutral power.

It's actually rather entertaining (okay, really really really entertaining). And he knows better than to let anyone know. No matter what, he'd end up with at least one enemy, maybe two, depending. And towel wars in this place can get lethal.

(Dammit, he knows Cammie is a woman. A splendid beautiful woman. This of course explains why he frequently feels as if he's living in some bizarre version of a James Barrie fantasy. Sort of a Boy's Own X-Rated Adventure. His life just keeps getting weirder, and he didn't think that was even possible.)

Eventually, the solution brokered is for Cammie and JD to exchange ice cream pints through a neutral third party. Daniel doesn't even need to be asked; he holds out his hands to claim both pints and play Switzerland (not the first time he's found himself in the role). He hands them both their 'own' ice cream simultaneously; they both snatch the pints out of his hands and glare at each other (though thankfully not at him). It's all a sham; both of them are more than willing to eat either flavor. But it amuses them.

Cammie works her toes (of the good leg, or the less bad one at least) underneath JD's thigh, uses them to grope Daniel with. All the while prospecting through her pint of ice cream for the good stuff, and feeding Daniel the dark chocolate chunks and JD the white. (She is gracious in victory, generous even in draw.) "So," she says, finally, out of nowhere. "I was thinking."

"Alert the presses," JD says, and yelps as she apparently flexes the arch of her foot in a way that indicates further smartass remarks would not be advisable if he wishes to contemplate the possibility of an erection anytime in the near future.

"Hush, you," she says, firmly. "I was thinking. Anyone see any problems with taking six months off from work?"

It's an outrageous suggestion, of course. Daniel's swamped. Completely. And Cammie and JD, Nielson-Mitchell, could be booked for the next ten years solid if they wanted to sign contracts that far out. He opens his mouth to say something -- thinking she means going up to that doctor in Portland she was talking about, ready to say something about how they can do commuter flights or work out some arrangement to abuse the 306's transporter somehow, not have to take time off from work, if it turns out she needs surgery after all -- but JD's already shaking his head. "Not in the least," he says. Serious, in the way he and Cammie oh-so-rarely are in front of Daniel; there's not a hint of banter. "Not if you need it."

Put like that, Daniel can't argue. "I could work something out," he says.

Cammie nods. "Good," she says, as though something's been decided. And just when Daniel's about ready to ask if the doctors had said more, something she hadn't told him, she adds, "Each'a you can pick two places we're going. I'll pick the rest."

And suddenly it comes clear. Travel is a fucking bitch already, a grinding and wearying farce so awful that JD and Cammie had bought the condo in Pentagon City just so they'd be assured of Cammie having someplace to go and immediately collapse whenever they needed to travel out there for a consult, and could avoid living out of a hotel when they got stuck out there for longer than they'd expected. Just flying for business, even first-class, can knock Cammie out for the better part of a day, and leaves her snarling and frustrated and ready to spit nails at the next person who tries to 'help' her. With Cammie in a wheelchair, their choices would narrow even further.

She wants one last chance to see all the places she's always wanted to.

He's ashamed of himself, that he was thinking of trying to talk her out of it (really, he should know better by now). "What are the rules?" he asks. Trying to show her that he'll play along. What the hell; it's not like he hasn't been banking leave time for approaching twenty years now. "I mean -- just in this country? Or anywhere?"

"On Earth," JD drawls.

"An' here I was hoping Daniel could manage to sweet-talk the General into lettin' us take a pleasure cruise of the galaxy's garden of delights," Cammie drawls right back.

If they're bickering, all's right with the world. "I'll still be here when you have these little details settled," Daniel says. "If our first stop is Area 51 to steal a ship and become space pirates, just let me know."

"Ninjas," Cammie corrects. "Ninjas are cooler. But yeah. Anywhere. Thought you might like to take me to Egypt. An' I always wanted to go to Thailand. Few rounds around the Australian outback, too."

It's crazy, of course. Insane. Being that far from quality medical care could spell disaster (to say nothing of the strain that travel puts on her body; he is intimately familiar with the provisions of the ADA by now, mostly due to Cammie griping when someone isn't following it, but so few countries have its equivalent). He wants to protest, but her eyes are pleading with him, and he can't say no. "I would love to take you to Egypt," he says, firmly. "Let me talk to some people I still know there. There's a lot of cool stuff to see if you're in good with the Department of Antiquities. And yeah, we have to do the Pyramids and the Sphinx, too, but I'll see if I can get us a private viewing."

He's thinking of accessability, and how avoiding the tourist crowd would be a godsend. JD snorts. "What, they're closed?"

And Daniel does not rise to the bait -- he knows damn well JD knows; the renovation of sites of archaeological importance into tourist destinations and the long and sordid history of Egypt scholarship had been a favorite rant of his, back in the day, and he'd always known Jack hadn't tuned him out as thoroughly as he'd appeared to -- because now's not the time for an argument. "A lot of the time," he says, mildly. "Visiting hours. Do not approach beyond this point. Yadda."

"That sounds perfect," Cammie says, firmly. She shifts her weight; JD instantly strong-arms himself up on the side of the tub to lift himself out of the way so she can re-position herself. She takes a deep breath. "An' -- I wanna go, if we can -- if we can manage to work it out somehow -- Antarctica. I wanna go back. I wanna look that bastard continent in the eye."

"I'll ask about that, too," Daniel says. He won't say no, but he's been in and out of Antarctica the regular way enough times (five, by actual count) to want to spare Cammie the misery if humanly possible. Fastest and easiest would be if they can beg a ride from one of the 306s. It'll involve pulling strings. Lots of them. (Cammie had clearance, once upon a time, and -- Medal of Honor; that carries weight. But Jack had managed to bury the fact of JD's existance deep.) The best way to do it would be beam up, half an hour in orbit, beam down. Then beam up again, once she's gotten the chance to spit in the face of the place that did this to her. (Yes, Anubis shot her down. But he's dead. Antarctica is all that's left to kick.)

He doesn't want to promise anything before he checks, but when the ships are in orbit, they're -- okay, not exactly available, but not unavailable, either. Cammie smiles at him, seeing his wheels turning. (JD can see them, too. They'll talk later. Not precisely arranging things for Cammie -- she hates that -- but arranging things so that Cammie can approve or deny.)

"And Tahiti," she adds. "I want a week on a beach with the two'a you. No work. No cell phone. No laptop. No email. Just us."

"Daniel gets to bring a book," JD says, instantly. "I'm not listening to his whining if he doesn't."

"I do not whine," Daniel counters. "I am perfectly capable of sitting around and listening to my mind rot."

"Sounds like whining to me," Cammie says, and Daniel would be happy to sit and listen to JD insulting him nonstop for the next month if it means the tense nervous ache in her voice is replaced by suppressed laughter like this.

JD nods. "Tragic, really."

And Daniel's a quick study; he knows his lines (how could he not? This scene is repeated day in, day out). "I'm pulling this bathtub over right now. I can't take either one of you anywhere, can I?"

"Nope," Cammie sings out, (thank God) sunny and cheerful. "We ain't housebroken. An' you get to tromp all over this planet with us for six whole months." She pauses. "On the plus side, it'll probably involve lots of oral sex."

Giving or receiving? Daniel's mind springs on him, and he swats it away (he does not question his sexuality these days; he fears it might answer him). "I'm going to wear a mask," Daniel announces. "Pink sand beaches or black ones?"

"I know they say black is classic," JD says, "but personally I've always thought pink is more flattering to a woman's complexion."

"Liar," Cammie shoots back. "Last week you said the pink made me look like a beached whale."

"Yeah, well, honey, that shade of coral pink with the little sailboats over your ta-tas is so not your look," JD says. "Don't worry. I threw it out."

"Aw," Cammie protests. "I was gonna give it to Sam and make her think she had to wear it, since it was a gift."

JD cocks his head, thinking. "Nah. Pale purple. She'll look like she's been dead for a week."

"I --" Daniel starts, and then gives up, because he is not going to say anything. Not. He has been known to lose his temper and shout 'am I the only one over the mental age of puberty in this house?' only to get back two identical shouts of 'yes'. So if you can't beat them -- and he knows he can't beat them -- you might as well join them; he fights with his better nature of all of thirty seconds before it loses. He leans in toward JD and composes his face into an expression of sincere worry. "You know," he says, quietly, "you'd better watch that kind of talk, JD. People might start to think you're, well, you know. Gay."

"Oh holy shit," Cammie says, in a quick rush of words. "Is that why you like sucking dick so much, Nielson? Ten years, and I had no fucking clue."

JD claps a hand over his mouth, his eyes round with horror. Clowning it up, and it's nothing new, but JD's version of it is different than Jack's ever was. More open. More self-mockery, and less self-defense. "Oh my God," he blurts. "Do you think that's why?"

Cammie nods, seriously. "I think we should test this theory," she says. "Collect data. We're gonna need a volunteer, though."

"Daniel volunteers," JD says instantly. Nothing new there; it's JD's answer for everything, from who's going to take out out the garbage to whose turn it is to empty the dryer. But Cammie nods again, her eyes dancing, and Daniel does not know why his girlfriend keeps trying to get him in bed with her gay boyfriend; aren't women supposed to be jealous? But she never has been, not from minute one, not from the very first. And he doesn't understand it, and he's not sure what to do about it, and he's never sure what to do with the pieces of information it inherently codes for: JD finds him sexually attractive. JD is sexually attracted to him. Cammie doesn't care.

It still makes his head hurt, no matter how many times he winds up with JD's hands or mouth on him. No matter how many times he winds up with his hands on JD. Sexuality is a sliding scale, not a binary either-or, and Daniel thinks that if Jack had come to him to confess this desire (at most points in their history; even by the end) he would have done his best to give Jack what he wanted, because he loves Jack. Loved Jack. Chaste and non-sexual (there's much of the same in Cammie and JD, actually, and it's the first time he's realized it, and he files it away for later contemplation), but he would have given Jack so much. It's no hardship to do the same (for, with) JD: Jack-and-not-Jack, and they never talk about whether JD's desire for him was born from Jack or from himself. Daniel's not sure he wants to know.

All he knows is that he'd rather have JD close than send him out and away to seek solace in strangers. Daniel hasn't been loved by enough people in his life to want to push one of them away.

So he laughs (happy friendly teasing, all of it, always). "I'm not volunteering to drown," he says. His standards are getting lower every day, but he still has them; sex in the tub (of the type they're proposing, rather) involves someone holding their breath a lot or someone else slipping and sliding while sitting on the edge of the tub, and he is too damn old for either one.

"Don't need to," JD says, smugly. "Water's getting cold, anyway. And there's a bed just out there."

"I'll get the towels," Cammie says, bright and cheerful. She starts the process of prying herself out of the Jenga pile in the tub. JD freezes the minute she starts moving; she puts one hand on his shoulder and the other on the grab-bar reinforced into the wall. Daniel has offered to be her assistive device more times than he can count, and she never takes him up on it, but she will use JD as furniture and jungle gym without thinking twice, and JD seems to know without question when she needs him to move and when she needs him to hold still. Daniel's not exactly jealous; it's too interesting a phenomenon to watch. The way they are together, and all of the interplay, and he wonders if he can watch them long enough to understand the whole history and genesis of it. If that's possible at all.

Daniel waits until Cammie's clear (he's learned how to stay out of her way, at least, and that was a hard lesson for him, because he wants to help, but she's spent years learning how to be aware of her environment and her body and its limitations and he's learned -- on his own, from JD -- that introducing an independent variable at a time like this upsets her calculations). That means JD moves next, but that's fine; Daniel doesn't live in constant low-grade terror of knocking JD down, and the two of them have lived together for so long that JD isn't a variable for Cammie anymore but a constant. (He'll get there someday, he promises himself. Someday.)

Cammie's already out of the bathroom by the time Daniel gets up. JD hands him a towel. "Thanks," he says, quietly.

Daniel blinks. "For?"

"For not making a big deal out of this. For playing along. For letting her change the subject." JD wraps his own towel around his waist. "Pick one. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Daniel says. "I --" Love her, but he still hasn't found the way to say it, so he channels it into something else. "I want to help. Her. You. You know that. Just tell me what to do."

And JD smiles at him. Fond, and open, and it's so easy to forget where JD came from when he looks like this. "I know," he says. "Come on. She's waiting."

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