Daniel reached into the box. "You kept it?" The ribbed pattern of the sweater bumped gently against his fingers as he touched it. "Just this one? Why?"

It took ten minutes to get Jack to admit that it was because it was the one Daniel had worn when he'd… visited him; ten seconds to point out the logical flaw that it must have been saved a long time before that.

Goaded, Jack snapped, "Fine. I always liked you in that sweater -- God, I can't believe I just said that -- and can we move on? Please?"

Daniel took pity on him. "I know. Knew. That you liked it."

If anything, Jack looked even more horrified. God forbid he be caught having an opinion on a fashion choice. Although it hadn't been one Daniel had made; the sweater had been a gift from Sam. It was nice. Daniel folded it and set it aside with a final pat.

"How did you know?"

"I still don't remember everything, but I was Ascended, Jack; you think I owned clothes? I probably just looked the way you expected me to. Appeared the way you wanted to see me. And apparently, you don't have much imagination." Daniel felt a little wistful. Angel wings? Maybe not…

Jack started to smile, visibly regaining control of himself and therefore, in his eyes at least, the conversation. "Oh, I don't think so, Daniel."

"Hmm?" Daniel carried on emptying the box, wondering why it'd taken Jack so many weeks to bring it over, and why it hadn't been in the storage room at the SGC with everything else.

And why Jack had felt it necessary to tip the contents of Daniel's desk drawers into it without sorting through them at all. The opened, half-eaten candy bar hadn't kept well.

"I like you in it, sure… but if I'd been the one deciding what you wore?"

"Yes?"

Jack leaned in close, freezing Daniel in place with surprise, his mouth tickling Daniel's ear. "You'd have been wearing goose bumps." He walked away, reaching the door as a stunned Daniel opened his mouth to reply and forestalling him with another smile and a final, murmured, "Goose bumps. Yeah."



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