Title: Common Threads

Authors: Emily M. and Azar

E-mail: Em and Azar

Fandoms: Stargate SG-1/Without a Trace crossover

Disclaimer: The only thing that's ours is the bar and the sense of déjà vu.

Spoilers/season: Stargate--through the beginning of season 7; Without a Trace--through the end of season 1.

Rating: PG

Pairings: Daniel/Sam and Danny/Samantha. Can be interpreted as unrequited.

Acknowledgments: Thanks to our beta-readers, MegTDJ and Jeanine--we couldn't have done it without you!

Summary: Two old friends catch up in a New York bar.

"Common Threads"
a Stargate SG-1/Without a Trace crossover
by Emily M. and Azar

He was late again. Danny Taylor grinned as he looked at his watch--he'd joked in high school that Daniel Jackson existed in his own time zone, and some things didn't seem to have changed.

Of course, "Daniel-time" had taken on a whole new meaning in the past few years, since it had come to include whole years without any word from his friend--not even whether he were alive or dead. That thought sobered Danny immediately; working as he did with missing persons, those silences were especially hard to handle. They hit a little too close to home, because--aside from him--Daniel didn't have much of anyone who would notice if he went missing. Kinda like that girl, Eve, that they'd found dead because no one knew to look for her until it was too late.

That was one reason they were meeting here--Daniel owed him an explanation, big time, for this last disappearance.

Daniel pushed open the door to the bar and was hit by a blast of noise and music. Coughing at the stale odor of cigarette smoke, he made his way through the crowded establishment. Of all the places Danny Taylor could have chosen to meet, he'd gone with a bar. Or maybe it did make sense. How many hours had they spent in places like this, with fake IDs to keep the drinks coming?

He finally saw Danny at a small table in the back looking, well, pissed was the word. Still, it brought a smile to his face. It had been too long since they'd seen each other in person; all their communication took place through e-mail these days and sometimes on the phone. When it took place at all.

Yeah, this was bad. Abydos was hard enough to explain away. Truthfully, it hadn't been that hard to give up his life on Earth. He'd always seen himself as an outsider, and after that conference it had been easy to believe he'd had no friends left. Coming back and seeing that Danny had been worried about him had meant more to him that he'd even realized at the time. It meant that maybe there was still something on Earth for him. Maybe he could survive here.

Of course there had also been a load of guilt involved in leaving someone to wonder about your fate for a year. And here he was doing it all over again. He had to get Danny a job at the SGC; then at least the man would know what was going on. But what was worse--not knowing or knowing the worst?

Setting aside such philosophical questions for another time, he steeled himself and sat down in the chair opposite his friend. "Hey."

Truth be told, a significant percentage of Danny's anger dissipated at the sight of Daniel alive and well and sheepish. He still wasn't ready to just let it go, but that only gave him yet another excuse to get in some well-earned ribbing before they got down to brass tacks.

"Hey. Was beginning to wonder if I got the year wrong and should come back in 2004."

"Sorry. I got stuck in traffic." Daniel stared at the table, not sure how to start this conversation. "So..." He sighed. "I'm guessing you're a little mad." Danny's glare took the "a little" off of his guess.

"Just a little," the other man drawled with a trace of sarcasm. "I love my work, but that doesn't mean I like my friends to *become* my work, y'know?"

Daniel could relate to that statement. But for him, work equaled friends. It also equaled lovers, but now was not the time to bring that up, even if he could have explained it without delving into classified territory. He went with the easy answer. "I know, I'm sorry. I should have had someone call you and tell you I was going away."

Going away? More like dying. Well, sort of. But part of him was happy that Danny hadn't been called, because if Danny had been notified, then there was no way the two of them could ever have renewed contact. How do you explain away being dead to someone who didn't know the whole story? Hell, people who did know the story had trouble with it. *He* still had trouble with it, and he'd lived it.

Danny shook his head. "No, Daniel, *you* should've called me and told me you were going away. Even if you can't tell me where or for how long, you owe me that much. After that, if you want to have somebody else keep me updated while you're gone so I know I'm not going to be getting a call to come look for you anytime soon, that's fine. But the actual, 'Hey, I'm leaving for an indefinite amount of time, don't worry about me'...that should come from you."

"It was...complicated. I didn't know I was leaving. It was a last minute thing, sort of an offer I couldn't refuse." Daniel couldn't keep the slight smile off of his face after that one. Oma as the Godfather. Jack was right, sometimes his mind worked in strange ways. He sobered quickly and said, "I promise you that it was beyond my control. I didn't exactly have a phone handy." Nor had he been really capable of making calls like that what with being drugged to gills on pain medication and hardly able to move without making the agony of it all even worse. He suddenly remembered why he tried not to think about that particular experience.

"So what am I supposed to do to make sure you're not out there getting yourself killed, doing...whatever the hell it is an archaeologist does for the Air Force?" He didn't sound appeased. "Look, Daniel, we've known each other since we were kids. Especially considering the kind of work I do, I don't think it's too much to ask to hear that you're okay every once in a while."

"I call when I can," Daniel defended himself, sounding petulant even to his own ears. "I know you worry, but I'm off--out of the country half the time and buried under a pile of work the other half. You know, I don't even remember what I did this past year. I have no idea if I even--" Too much, his mind screamed, but the words were out. What was he doing? Taking frustrations out on an old friend who had nothing to do with them and every right to be mad at him. Coming way too close to saying things that he wasn't allowed to say. He closed his eyes. The smoke and noise in the bar were getting to him, and a headache had planted itself in the middle of his forehead.

"You don't remember?" Danny's eyes narrowed, then a familiar sparkle crept into them and he couldn't resist. "Must've been a hell of a hangover," he teased. "Or a hell of a woman."

"A little of both actually," Daniel said with a grin.

The other man whistled slowly and a little of the tension seeped out of the room. Seeing Daniel relax, Danny's mind went back to the memory comment...which had clearly been a slip. He frowned--what was it, an injury in the line of duty? He almost opened his mouth to ask, but stopped himself.

He had a sinking feeling he wouldn't get an answer.

"And let me guess--you can't tell me about it. Or her."

"No. I'm sorry. And yes, I'm tired of hearing me say that too. It's just...the military. Secrets. I understand why, but sometimes it's hard. I don't have many friends left that aren't in the program." In the program? Daniel mentally rolled his eyes at himself. He sounded like a bad spy drama.

Danny shook his head. "Y'know, someday after this thing you're working on gets declassified, you have *got* to tell me what they offered you to get you into 'the program.'"

He looked--really looked--at the man sitting across from him. A man who barely resembled the long-haired, skinny, awkward genius he'd grown up with. The foster brother who had needed a protector so badly in elementary school that their common name and parallel losses had been excuse enough for him to blacken a few sneering eyes.

"They didn't have to offer me much," Daniel said. "I didn't have much left at the time." Well now he was just being maudlin. "I got sucked into something a lot bigger than I was expecting, to tell you the truth. But I think I'm a better man for it. I never would have met my wife, for one." The brief mention of Sha're was enough to send a sharp pain of grief through his chest. It was a pain that had lessened over the years, but never really gone away. It probably never would, and he was okay with that.

The other man's smile was sympathetic. "Still can't figure out how you, the geek, managed to beat me to the altar," he joked softly. "And I'm still waiting for an explanation on why I didn't get an invite to the wedding."

"Me either," Daniel said quietly. "And hey, that wedding wasn't exactly planned." The waitress finally made her way over and Daniel ordered a beer. The expensive imported kind that Jack liked to make fun of.

Danny ordered a glass of soda.

"Oh, I forgot," Daniel said, and started to call the waitress back to change his order, but Danny stopped him.

"It's fine," he said. "Don't worry about it." He tapped his fingers against the table. "So do you have any idea how hard it is to catch up with an old friend whose whole life is now classified?" he asked, smiling as he shook his head again.

"Are you thinking of changing jobs?" Daniel asked with a grin. "Maybe I could get you into the program and then I could tell you everything. It pays well, but you get shot at a lot." He really was saying too much, but he trusted Danny. He was the kind of guy you could open up with and trust not to ask for more than you were willing to give or talk about your conversations behind your back. It was a trait he'd come to rely on at a time when everyone from his foster parents to his social worker to the old lady with the cats who lived across the street wanted him to talk about what happened. As if telling them that it really hurt to see your parents die would somehow make the hurt go away.

Danny didn't push because he knew what it was like to be there.

There was a little something like regret in the other man's face, but he still shook his head. "Nah, I'm good. 'Sides, if nothing else, I bet Jack'd kill me if I walked right now--he needs someone to baby-sit the rookie and I've got some experience in that area."

He grinned broadly at the "experience" in question, who was giving him a mildly annoyed look over the rim of his glasses.

"I'm not as young or naive as I used to be. Jack--my Jack--seems to want to take credit for that, but I like to think I became jaded and cynical all on my own."

"Y'know, I still can't get over that--that you work for a guy named Jack too," Danny shook his head, his tone amused. He masked his disappointment that the man across from him was indeed more jaded and cynical than he used to be. Daniel Jackson's remarkable buoyancy, despite the hell his life had put him through by the grand old age of ten, had always been an encouragement to Danny Taylor, whose own hell had started when he was eleven. It had helped him, on more than one occasion, not to succumb to despair about the human condition after a particularly horrifying case.

As much as he cared about his friend, a very big part of him didn't want to know what had finally jaded him. That more than anything else made it a cinch to turn down Daniel's job offer. Instead, he decided to have a little fun with his old friend. See if this more jaded, less naive Daniel Jackson still blushed as easily as he used to.

An easy, mischievous smile spread over Danny's face. "Speaking of...'your' Jack? You don't mean...y'know, *your* Jack? In the 'don't ask, don't tell' sense?"

Daniel choked on his beer. "Yes, the military would be thrilled. You'd be offering me a job." He sighed. "Besides there are other...people. Women," he added with a slight roll of his eyes. "Just one woman," he said a second later, and he said it so softly, he wasn't sure Danny had even heard him.

He had. Both Taylor's eyebrows shot up and his grin totally took over his face. "Oh yeah? So what can you tell me about this woman that's not classified? A name, at least?"

"Sam. Her name is Sam. Actually, it's Samantha, but only her father calls her that. And she is smart and fun and beautiful, and the first woman I've felt anything for since my wife died." He stopped, realizing he'd gotten a completely idiotic grin on his face. "And should she or anyone else somehow find out any of this from you, even your FBI friends won't find you. I know people." He was going for menacing, but apparently he should leave that to Jack, because he had a feeling he'd come off as silly.

Or then again, maybe not, because he'd never seen his friend pale so quickly. Maybe years of hanging around the Goa'uld had rubbed off on him--now there was a frightening thought--and he'd learned how to threaten people effectively. "You do know that was a joke, right?"

"Yeah, it's just..." Danny ran a hand over his head and let out a low breath. "Next thing you're gonna tell me she's about 5'5", blonde, and sleeping with your boss."

So maybe his menacing skills still needed work. "Blonde. Not 5'5", I'd say more like 5'9". And I don't think she's sleeping with Jack. Though there are rumors."

"Good." Danny took a hearty swig of his whiskey and gave his friend a half-hearted grin. "'Cause that would just be a little *too* much of a coincidence."

"What would?" Daniel asked, almost fearing the answer.

Danny sighed again and stared morosely at his glass. "If your Sam were that much like mine."

"You have a Sam? Is your Sam *your* Sam or is she just your Sam in the sense that she's not my Sam?" There were too many Sams in that sentence.

"Depends--are we talking actual fact here or is wishful thinking included in that definition?"

Daniel nodded. "I think I understand. Can you translate Cuneiform?"

Danny looked confused by the apparent non sequitir. "Huh?"

"I was just thinking. If we looked more alike, we could pull a Parent Trap and you could try my life and I could try yours. We wouldn't have to adapt to new names, at least," he said with a grin. "But you couldn't get very far in my job if you can't translate Cuneiform. Or Egyptian hieroglyphs. Latin. Greek helps too..."

"Don't forget about the part where she's sleeping with my boss," Danny pointed out with a wry grin. "Oh yeah, and the fact that my partner's in love with her, too. Wouldn't wish that on you."

"Must be something about women named Sam. People have a tendency to fall in love with my Sam. Of course, people who fall in love with her also have a tendency to die, so maybe it's good that she doesn't know anything about it. Been dead before though. One more time won't hurt." His mouth snapped shut when he realized what he'd said. He was just giving away all his secrets tonight. There was probably an NID guy at the next table over, too. They were going to fire him for this. He decided to head the question off at the pass. "I was injured. My heart stopped for almost a minute. People like to tease me about dying on them." Technically, all that was true.

"Damn, Daniel, you really have got it bad if you can say things like dying won't hurt with a straight face." Danny chuckled. "But then, I'm one to talk--my Sam got taken hostage a few weeks ago, and I was the only one who couldn't let it show how scared I was."

He grimaced. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to watch someone else risk everything for the woman you'd give your life for? And not be able to say a damn thing because you know she needs you to be the one person in her life who isn't falling all over her?"

"Unfortunately." Daniel looked down at his almost empty glass, considered a second, and decided against it. A midnight flight back to Colorado was bad enough. He wasn't doing it with two glasses of beer in his system on an empty stomach. "Aren't we a sad pair?"

"Pathetic," Danny agreed with false cheerfulness. "Remind me to file a complaint with the man upstairs next time I actually make it to mass."

Daniel sighed. "So are we good?"

"You and me?" Danny nodded. "Yeah, we're good. Just don't make a habit of the long silences thing anymore, 'kay?"

"I can't promise anything." He noticed how Danny frowned at that, but it was the truth, and he wasn't going to pretend otherwise. "But I'll give my friends your number. They'll let you know if something happens."

"Okay. Guess I'll just have to get used to the idea," the other man sighed. "And hey, next time you're in town, let me know. I'll take you down to the office, show you around." He grinned.

"Sure. And next time you're in Colorado I'll...show you my apartment. And you can look at the outside of the mountain. From a distance." He smiled a little and shrugged.

Danny laughed. "Tell you what? Just throw me a party and be sure to invite 'your' Sam and we'll call it even," he teased.

"Deal," Daniel glanced at his watch. It was later than he expected. "I have a plane to catch. Give me a call sometime, okay?"

"Sure." The two men shook hands, Danny shaking his head as well. "And for the record, make it a real visit next time. I don't care if you can afford to fly across country just to hang out for an hour or two, it still sucks." He grinned again.

Daniel smiled. "Sure." He dropped enough money on the table for both of them and they headed to the door together. Outside the air was cool and crisp enough to give him a chill despite his jacket.

"Hey, Daniel," Danny's voice caught his attention as the door of the bar closed behind them. It sounded thoughtful.

Daniel looked at him. "Yeah?"

"This work you do...doesn't have anything to do with that theory of yours about the age of the pyramids, does it?"

Only years of experience at rolling with the punches kept Daniel from stopping dead in his tracks. "Not really, no," he said, but even to his own ears he sounded like he was lying. Maybe that was another little change that came with being Ascended. He was sure he had been a better liar than that.

The FBI agent gave him an enigmatic, unreadable smile and nodded. "Thought not." Then, without a goodbye--they'd gotten in the habit as kids of never saying goodbye--he turned and casually walked away.

FIN