Disclaimer: Danny and Daniel aren't mine, but the history between them is. Martin is also not mine. Darn (on all three counts *g*).

E-mail: azarsuerte@hotmail.com

Rating: PG

Series: set in the same universe as "Beginning a Parallel" and "Common Threads," but can be read independently

Spoilers: Stargate--"Need"; Without a Trace--"Risen"; minor ones for any episodes that touch on Daniel's or Danny's past

Acknowledgments: Thanks to Em for the beta, and for being my partner in crime in this universe! :-)

Summary: Danny remembers the friend who helped him get sober.

"Coming Clean"
by Azar

"So how'd you get clean?"

The drive had been mostly silent, both Martin and Danny's thoughts occupied. But the question wasn't entirely unexpected. "I mean..." the younger agent stumbled. "...what was the catalyst? What made you realize...?"

Danny laughed softly. "That I was flushing my life down the toilet?"

"Well, I wouldn't put it that way..."

"I would." He sighed, letting his thoughts drift. "I'll tell you, though, I didn't take the hint easily. It took..."--he laughed again at the memory--"...it took Daniel showing up on my doorstep at the crack of dawn after a ten-hour flight from Egypt to knock it into my head that maybe he had good reason to be worried."

"Egypt??" Martin sounded floored, which made Danny glad he wasn't the one driving.

The senior agent grinned. "Yep. Daniel was over there on a dig. Got a letter from a mutual friend about what I was doing to myself, and dropped everything to fly back and kick my ass. Lucky for him, the professor in charge liked him, didn't give him any trouble about running out on the job."

The rookie blinked. "Good friend."

Danny nodded soberly. "One of the best. Especially considering at the time, Daniel was a skinny geek who'd never started a fight in his life."

Martin shook his head, a wondering expression on his face. "A skinny geek on a dig in Egypt...I gotta admit, not exactly the kind of person I pictured you being friends with."

The other agent grinned. "We were foster brothers for a few months as kids. Kept in touch."

"Still..."

"It was the name thing," Danny admitted. "Plus the fact that we'd both lost our folks; most of the other kids in that home were either abandoned or they'd been taken away from their parents for whatever reason. We stuck together because knowing we were wanted was all that separated us from them."

Martin's voice was quiet, perturbed. "Oh..."

Danny grimaced; probably the rookie had never thought before about what it would be like to have nothing else that was yours. It seemed to happen a lot when they talked--like Martin only ever realized how sheltered his life had been when confronted with the reality of his teammate's screwed up childhood.

"We helped each other out--I made sure everybody knew that anybody that messed with him messed with me, and Daniel's one of those genius types, so he helped me get my grades up in history and English and the like. 'Course I managed to get myself screwed up again after we went our separate ways, but Daniel stuck by me. That's just how he is."

"So he just showed up on your doorstep one day from Egypt and, bang, that was it?" Martin retreated back to the original subject.

Danny laughed again. "I wish. I was so far gone it took me almost a week to even realize where Daniel was supposed to be, even though he'd written to me several times from the dig. But nah, when I say he came back here to kick my ass, I mean it..."

...............

"What the hell are you doing?" Danny demanded furiously, snatching the now-empty Jack Daniels bottle out of his friend's hand.

Daniel Jackson's blue eyes, owlish behind his wire-rim glasses, met Danny's black ones evenly, without flinching. "Call it an intervention," was the flippant reply.

He uncorked the Southern Comfort next, the last bottle on the counter, and moved to pour it out as well into the sink. Danny grabbed his wrist, knowing the archaologist probably wouldn't be able to twist out of his grasp.

He was right. Instead, Daniel opened his hand and let go.

The bottle hit the edge of the drain and shattered.

"You son of a bitch!" Danny raged.

"Call me whatever you want, but I'm not leaving here until you're dry," came the calm, stubborn reply.

Still angry, Danny let go of his friend's wrist and pushed him away. "What the hell do you care?"

"Why do I care?" Now Daniel sounded incredulous. "For one thing, you're my friend. And for another, you told me you changed your name to give yourself a new start, a new life. Is this the new life you want?" He waved his hand in disgust around the room, encompassing the peeling wallpaper, the filthy windows, the cockroaches, the layer of dust over everything... "Sitting around in a filthy, ghetto apartment drinking your life away?"

He took a step towards Danny, blue eyes blazing with a fire the other man hadn't seen in a long time. "How can you stand to live like this?"

"Just shut up and stop pretending you know anything about my life," the other man snapped. "That you've ever known anything about my life. Everything comes easy for you. You got scholarships coming out your ass. Grad schools fighting over who gets to claim the future Dr. Daniel Jackson as their alumnus. When you were getting your BA, I was still trying to find time to study for my GED. And don't think that long hair makes you some sort of rebel--you're still just a pretty white boy with an easy ride through life."

Daniel went very still for a long moment before he spoke again, his voice ominously quiet: "You, of all people, know better than to think anything about my life has been easy."

Danny flinched.

"Okay, so maybe I didn't have to fight as hard to get into the college I wanted," Daniel admitted, "but the fact of the matter is you *did* fight and you won! You didn't settle for being a high school drop-out, you didn't settle for spending the rest of your life under the shadow of your juvenile record, so why the hell are you settling for this?"

................

"He didn't get it." Danny smiled nostalgically. "He didn't understand what addiction does to you. But he also didn't give up. He slept outside my door, wouldn't let me leave home without him, so he could make sure I didn't sneak down to the liquor store and buy myself a bottle of something. Finally, after a week of being under house arrest, my head finally cleared enough that I was able to admit I needed help. Daniel came with me to my first AA meeting...and the rest is history."

"Wow." Martin shook his head in wonder. "I'd kinda like to meet the guy who could sit on you for a week and live to tell about it."

"Yeah, well, Daniel's one of a kind," Danny admitted. "Last I heard, he was driving an Air Force Colonel nuts on a daily basis."

"Air Force?" The younger agent sounded surprised all over again.

"Yeah, I wondered about that too, but whatever he's up to is classified, so..." Danny shrugged. He frowned, a memory coming back to him of a call he'd gotten from Daniel five years ago...a call to apologize, say he didn't get it before, but now he did.

Addiction, withdrawal--he'd recognized the signs instantly just from Daniel's behavior over the phone: the wild mood swings, including dips into almost suicidal depression, the tendency to jump at every shadow or whisper...not to mention the admission that he hadn't believed he had a problem until he found himself in a storage closet, holding a gun on his CO because Jack wouldn't let him get his next fix.

It was just another one of those things--like year-long silences followed by cryptic comments about amnesia and dying--that made him glad he didn't know what Daniel did for a living these days. Because if he knew, he just might have to put a few Air Force officers' lights out for what they'd done to his foster brother.

Silence lingered again for several miles.

"Think we'll find her?" Martin asked quietly, switching gears again, this time back to the case.

Danny's thoughts flitted back to the young woman whose life had gone so horribly wrong even before her disappearance. The young woman they were trying to find. That girl...Jessica...needed and deserved a second chance as much as he ever had. But it seemed she hadn't had a Daniel in her life to make sure she got it.

He sighed. "I hope so."

FIN