He's beautiful, you know, and he doesn't have a clue that he turns almost every head when he walks in the room. Even soaked in sweat and caked with dust he's beautiful and doesn't know it. It's one of the things I love about him, that he really has no idea how special he is. If he ever gets a clue he could really become insufferable. I've seen it happen enough times. As it stands it's ... cute. Yah, that's the word, cute.

It really is beyond me sometimes that he couldn't understand what he is. I mean, he's barely thirty-six, speaks twenty-nine languages fluently and has three PHD's, never mind the physical and things he can never tell the academic world about. How could he not realize that's unusual? Special. Yes, that he's special.

Right now he's probably at his best. There's nothing for him to worry about but his rocks. Artifacts he calls them. Well, they're still rocks to me, as much to tease him as anything. Nothing matters to him other than the discovery right now -- not the dust, the hot sun, not the 18 and 20 hour days for weeks on end. He does things on these digs that would strain most of my special ops friends. Civilians aren't supposed to be able to pull this kind of endurance work but Daniel, my dear Daniel that can't go on a simple scouting mission without getting in trouble can excavate an entire city without mishap. Go figure.

At least he hasn't dragged me out into the sun to look at one of those dust covered rocks today. Yet. It's going to happen eventually. It always does. He always comes to me these days when he finds something interesting. As dull as it is, it warms me in a way the sun can't. Of all the people on these digs he comes to me first with his joy; the one person that probably cares the least about the object ... and the most about him.

Until I see that particular twitch that signals he's found 'it', all I have to do is sit here in the shade and make sure all he has to worry about is his precious rocks. I know everyone thinks I do it out of duty to my teammate, but I love watching him work like this. It wipes away all the pain and evil of the past few years. It lets the real Daniel shine through. Sometimes I wish I could wipe those years away and give him his innocence back, but that would mean taking myself out of his life too, and damnit, I'm not willing to give him up. Not even for him to be completely whole and happy again. It's greedy and selfish of me, I know, but he's the only thing in my life that might actually be able to stick by me though it all.

Ah, there he goes. He just saw something interesting. Interesting to him at least. I'm about to be dragged out in the sun to see what he's found and listen to a two hour lecture about the implications of it all. Not that I mind any more, but no one but me is going to know that.

"Hey, Jack. What's up?" His voice is cheerful as he grins up at me with some dust covered rock in his hand and the bounce in his step.

"Nothing, just keeping an eye out for trouble."