Fic: Vampires, and Werewolves, and Wormholes, Oh My!

[welfycat]

Vampires, and Werewolves, and Wormholes, Oh My! - Stargate: SG-1 - Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill. Implied Sam Carter/Jonas Quinn and Vala Mal Doran/Cameron Mitchell - Words: 22,149
Written for stargate_summer Big Bang 2012.
Summary: Jack O'Neill has just been recalled to active duty and assigned to the Stargate Program. Taking the place of the legendary Jack O'Neil - with one "L" - is more difficult than he expected, particularly since he seems to have inherited his name doppelganger's former team. Although he first struggles to fit on the gloomy base nestled deep in Cheyenne Mountain, his only friend the Jaffa called Teal'c, he slowly discovers that there is much more going on than aliens and wormholes. And what is with that Daniel Jackson, the mysterious archeologist who will barely even look at Jack, let alone talk to him?
This story is a fusion between Stargate SG-1 and Twilight.
Content Notes: Semi-graphic violence and violent imagery. PG-13.
Author Notes: Thanks so much to the fantastic emeraldsnakes, who is my beta, my cheerleader and my voice of reason all rolled into one spectacular person who doesn't balk in the slightest when I say: "hey, so I'm writing a SG-1/Twilight fusion…"

On AO3: Vampires, and Werewolves, and Wormholes, Oh My!

Artwork! by sexycazzy
Artwork! by ninja_hamsters



Jack O'Neill had heard a lot about the newly formed Stargate Program over the past week. The tale of Jack O'Neil - with one "L" - was legendary among the military members who'd been recruited and how he'd failed to return from the rescue mission but sent back an alien in his stead. Jack thought his name-double's death wasn't a particularly promising start to the whole endeavor, but who was he to judge? He'd seen pictures of the man and thankfully he looked nothing like this Jack O'Neil - with one "L".

So, here he was: one formerly retired lieutenant colonel with a duffle bag slung over his shoulder as he walked into Cheyenne Mountain for the first time.

"This had better be the shortest posting in the history of military postings. If they think I'm going to hang around in this underground city full of nut-cases, they've got another think coming," Jack said to himself as he folded his arms and ignored the handful of odd looks he was receiving. He was a lieutenant colonel, after all. He had earned the right to talk to himself in public.

Jack adjusted his bag, thinking unpleasant thoughts at pretty much every person he encountered. There was no reason to think that the dark haired woman standing with a clipboard and looking intent could possibly have a welcoming personality, or that the guards stationed in the hallway would look the other way if he had to sneak through to avoid a long and unpleasant briefing. They were probably all enamored with this traveling to new worlds, seeking out new life and possibly new civilizations, to boldly going … Well, and all that jazz. Personally, Jack was ready to be on a beach in Florida; content in spending the rest of his days with a strong drink and the rush of the tide.

His clearance got him all the way through to the General's office, to the very man who had dragged him to this drab and dreary military installation with the only phrase that would have roused him from his grim stupor: "We need men, Jack! Men!"

"George," Jack drawled, leaning in the General's doorway.

"Colonel O'Neill," General George Hammond said as he stood from behind his desk. "I hope the flight wasn't too terrible?"

There were many things Jack could say about the flight being terrible, that he wasn't piloting the plane was at the top of the list, but he was here as a favor. He would do this for George and try to complain as little as possible. Out loud, that was. "So, aliens?" Jack asked, aiming for sarcastic and only winding up somewhere around disbelieving.

"Yes, aliens," George replied, sounding slightly put out. "And now I'm responsible for this whole mess of a military installation. I've gone ahead and assigned you quarters in the mountain for the time being. You'll meet your team at the briefing tomorrow morning. In the mean time, just try to get a feel for the place. I'm sure you'll settle in. Now, if you don't mind, I have a special flight squadron coming in that I have to greet. We can have dinner another time."

"Sure thing," Jack said, already wondering about the 'special flight squadron' and what made them so special that George couldn't even spend the evening with him after he'd been dragged out of retirement and halfway across the country. Never mind. He was a lieutenant colonel - he could find his own way around.

"Oh, Jack," George called when Jack was halfway out into the hallway already.

Jack turned, keeping his grimace of impatience carefully hidden from the man for which he held at least a grudging respect.

"Try to make some friends. There are a lot of people here, I'm sure you'll get along with someone if you try," George said. "I hate to think of you wandering the mountain by yourself."

"I'll be fine," Jack promised, the smile that he was trying to make sincere coming out as a smirk instead. Close enough.

Twenty minutes later, after a brief stop at his assigned quarters, Jack was slumped in the mess hall with a glass dish of red jello in front of him and a scowl on his face. There was no other way to say it: Cheyenne Mountain, and the Stargate Program, sucked.

*****

The next morning, after a restless sleep in the confines of his bland quarters, Jack revised his previous opinion on the Stargate Program. It didn't just suck, it wasn't just going to be the usual military posting of alternating between mind-numbingly boredom and in-fear-for-your-life terror. The Stargate Program was going to be the death of him.

Jack stared at the four people gathered around the conference table. The first three were his new teammates - a female military officer with spunky, short blonde hair, a distracted male archeologist whose hair was longer than the female officer's, and a giant alien with no hair at all. Self consciously Jack reached up to pat his military regulation length hair that was just starting to turn gray. If he was going to be the normal hair guy on the team, he was going to do it right. Jack turned to the fourth person seated at the table and tried not to glare. The fourth person was, of course, George Hammond - the person who assigned him this team of weirdos in the first place.

"Your first mission is to explore a 'gate address recovered from the cartouche that Doctor Jackson discovered on Abydos. You leave tomorrow at 0800, any questions?" George asked, looking away when a pair of men in dress uniform arrived in the doorway.

"No, sir," Jack replied, though he didn't regain the attention of the General.

"Dismissed," George said absently as he rose to his feet and motioned to the uniformed men to follow him into his office. The door shut behind them, leaving Jack alone in the conference room with his new team.

Jack turned just in time to see the archeologist disappear out the other door, looking back only briefly to glare at Jack. The female officer was right behind him, stopping only on the edge of the room to address him as "sir" before following the archeologist from the room as well.

"Was it something I said?" Jack asked, not thrilled to discover that his team was apparently as enthusiastic about him as he was about them.

"But you did not say anything at all, O'Neill," the alien said, sounding somewhere between completely disinterested and completely puzzled.

Jack sighed. "Yeah, that's my point."

The alien blinked, a deep frown appearing briefly as he thought about what Jack had said and then apparently dismissed it entirely.

"Alright, what's your name again?" Jack asked, having missed it completely during the introductions.

"I am called Teal'c," the alien said. "It was a man with your name who released me from slavery to false gods and sacrificed his life to allow my escape. You look nothing like him."

Jack sighed. The Jack O'Neil - with one "L" - did look a lot more like a movie star than he did. Not a blockbuster movie star, but more of a ruffled science fiction and western movie star with a niche audience. Oh well, he supposed he couldn't have everything in life. "Well, Teal'c. Since the cool kids apparently don't want to hang out with us, have you ever watched The Simpsons?"

Teal'c stared, his face impassive. "What is a Simpsons?"

For the first time since stepping into Cheyenne Mountain, Jack smiled and meant it. "I have so much to teach you. Come on."

After a moment of hesitation Teal'c followed him from the room and back through the winding hallways of the base. "The other O'Neil told me there was much to learn from the Tau'ri. You will show me the ways of your people?"

Jack nodded. He could get behind teaching an alien all about Earth - at least the parts that involved desserts and television. "Let's start with a very important lesson. Are you ready?" Jack asked as he pressed the call button for the elevator.

Teal'c somehow straightened his posture even further. "I am prepared."

"Good television is always better with good snacks. Jello is a personal favorite, but the right balance of salty and sweet is a must. With time, you'll learn to balance the flavors just right," Jack said. The elevator doors opened and they both entered, Jack pressing the button that would take them to the floor with the mess hall.

"I do not understand," Teal'c said, his deep frown returning.

Jack manfully repressed a sigh. He had the feeling he was going to be hearing that a lot. "That's alright. We'll start with the basics, like ice cream and pretzels, and go from there." He stretched and wondered where his other two teammates had disappeared to, if they were off in a lab or office somewhere grumbling about their new team leader. It shouldn't have mattered, it didn't really, but there was something off about the pair of them that he couldn't explain. They'd only been in the same room with each other for minutes, but the way the archeologist was looking at him for a brief moment had been strange. Intense. Jack wasn't used to anyone looking at him like that.

"O'Neill, is this not the floor where we wish to disembark?" Teal'c asked.

Jack realized he'd been lost in his own thoughts, a tendency he'd gotten into during the months he'd been retired, and shook his head clear. "Come on, maybe they have pie. There is a lot to learn about pie."

"If you say it is so, O'Neill," Teal'c replied, faithfully following him from the elevator.

They wound up back in Jack's quarters, sitting on the end of the bed with plates of pie and a bag of potato chips Jack had managed to plead from the mess hall attendants. The DVD was set to continuous play of the episodes and while Teal'c watched in silence with a permanent expression of confusion, Jack sat back and thought while the images flickered in front of his eyes. They'd seen the military woman and the archeologist sitting together in the mess hall, along with a man and a woman that Jack didn't recognize at all. The archeologist had met Jack's eyes from across the room and taken a bite of the apple he was holding, watching Jack the entire time. At the moment Jack had thought the man disapproved of the whole chocolate pie Jack was clutching, but now, the stare seemed somehow more sinister.

"I'm not threatened by a long-haired, pale-skinned, geeky archeologist," Jack said, the words coming out as a low growl.

"I do not understand the connection," Teal'c said, looking up from the piece of pie he was skillfully dissecting.

Jack shook his head and waved Teal'c off. Whatever. At some point Teal'c would learn to let Jack muse out loud without interrupting him to ask for clarification.

"The woman with large blue hair, she is a skilled warrior," Teal'c observed.

Jack looked up at the screen and nodded. "Yeah, she is."

*****

Jack stared blankly at the electric blue puddle of water that was standing vertical and towering above him. They couldn't seriously be expecting him to touch this thing, could they? Nah. He looked back to find George waiting expectantly by the window, his arms folded as he and the other folks in the control area watched. Jack felt like a part of a guinea pig intelligence screening where the first rodents to voluntarily step into the electric current were obviously the stupidest ones.

"It's quite safe, sir," the female military officer said as she adjusted her green cap over her still perky blonde hair.

"Quite?" Jack repeated as he turned back to the Stargate.

"Oh, for hell's sake," the archeologist said from somewhere behind Jack.

Jack turned just in time to almost be run over by the archeologist. The man sneered and pulled his hand away from Jack like he thought he would burn if their skin touched. Before Jack could stop him, the man was stepping into the giant blue puddle and he didn't come back out.

The military woman followed without pause. Jack and Teal'c were the only ones left standing on the ramp.

"Any time now, colonel," George called over the intercom.

"Yeah, yeah. We're going," Jack grumbled. He supposed if the military wanted a way to kill him, this was as good as any. At least his death would be short and hopefully painless. "See you on the other side of the bright white light," Jack told Teal'c.

"The lights of the Chapa'ai are not white," Teal'c said, adjusting the large staff weapon he was carrying.

"Whatever," Jack said. He took a deep breath, gave himself a moment to mourn the fact that he'd never get to try every flavor of jello, and stepped into the light.

It took Jack a full minute to decide that he wasn't dead and that he just might prefer it if he was. That wasn't entirely true, there was jello and pie to look forward to after all, but the trip through the Stargate had left him feeling like he may never want to eat again. Or maybe just that he'd left his stomach back in Cheyenne Mountain and he was now, well, wherever he was.

The archeologist and the woman, Jack was really going to have to stop and learn their names at some point, were already standing at a distant ridge. This was going to be a long trip if they were determined to barely speak to him or look at him the entire time. And here he was supposed to be in charge.

"I believe Daniel Jackson and Captain Carter have located the local inhabitants of this world," Teal'c said. "Perhaps we should join them."

"Perhaps so," Jack said, his tone slightly mocking even as he took note of the names. At least now he knew the name of the archeologist who was so determined to avoid him. "It would have been nice if they'd waited. They must have sprinted fast in order to get that far ahead of us; that ridge is at least a mile off."

"Indeed," Teal'c said. He started down the rough path that led from the Stargate, leaving Jack scrambling to catch up.

Jack was panting ever so slightly when he climbed over the ridge to where his team was waiting for him, mentally composing a diatribe to George that he would never deliver, because he was going to be dead from exertion. "See new planets, meet aliens, save the world. You didn't mention anything about an exercise regimen from hell," he snapped as he approached the group.

"Sir?" Carter, the military woman, asked.

"Nothing!" Jack shouted. Couldn't anyone in this place let him talk to himself in peace?

Daniel Jackson, the archeologist, adjusted his glasses pointedly and then looked away.

Jack suddenly felt a little awkward at Daniel's glance. Shouting at his new teammates was not a great way to make a first impression. "Sorry. It's been a day," he said. "What do we have, down there?"

Carter tipped her head at him, one hand coming up to thoughtfully tug at the ends of her hair. "There's a village. They haven't observed us yet, though there are people keeping watch."

"Great," Jack said, suddenly realizing that he had no real idea of what he was doing with this whole damn Stargate Program to begin with. George hadn't exactly been clear about their goals, other than kill the freaky Goa'uld snake things and stay alive. While Jack could get behind simple goals and objectives, that did leave an awful lot that he didn't really know what to do with. Why couldn't someone have given him a guidebook - Exploring Alien Civilizations for Dummies. "Shall we go say hi?"

Daniel looked back and scowled. "Yeah, why don't we just go say hello, how you doing, what nice energy weapons you have, can we take a look?"

"Energy weapons?" Jack asked, walking over to near where Daniel was standing, but keeping enough distance that Daniel wouldn't stalk off or something.

Daniel sighed. "The two men at the village entrance have handheld energy weapons in their holsters. I've seen them before when I was on Abydos. Those weapons are a sure bet that there are Goa'uld in the village," he said slowly, as if he was explaining a very simple concept to an inattentive child.

"Great. So, we go liberate the village from Goa'uld oppression?" Jack asked.

"That would be most unwise," Teal'c said, having silently come up behind Jack. "To alert them to our presence would not only bring our death, but the deaths of the human villagers as well. We should return to your home-world and report the situation."

Jack stared at his team, seriously confused as to what was going on. "So, we came all this way to see if they were Goa'uld, and now that we know that there are Goa'uld, we're going home? Seriously?"

"That's what we're supposed to do, sir. I'd say that we only have a little while longer before we're noticed here, especially if we don't get back on the other side of the ridge," Carter said, adjusting her cap as she looked down at the village. "Too late, one of their sentries looked up. We need to go now."

"How can you even know that?" Jack asked as he leaned forward to squint down at the village. He could barely make out the people there and Carter hadn't been using binoculars or anything.

"We need to go, now," Daniel repeated, starting back down the ridge the way they'd come.

"Hey!" Jack shouted, deciding he didn't give a damn about first impressions on a mission. "I give the orders around here! You don't get to make that call."

Carter and Teal'c stayed put even though Daniel didn't turn back.

"We should leave, the longer we stay here the worse it will become," Carter said, her tone growing more urgent. "Sir."

"If the Goa'uld are aware of our presence, a retreat is the strategic option," Teal'c added.

Jack sighed. "Fine, whatever. Let's go. But I don't know why we came out here in the first place. Stupid field trip of a mission."

Carter raised her eyebrows briefly before bounding after Daniel, her movements lithe and graceful. Jack watched their descent for a moment, deciding that he had a pair of mountain goats on his team instead of people, and then followed with Teal'c bringing up the back.

The already overcast skies opened up and rain started to pour down on them, leaving Jack dripping in mere moments. "Perfect. Just perfect."

*****

The following day, when Jack was wearing dry clothes and had a few hours to recover from the shock of being shot at by aliens, he sought out Daniel Jackson. Cheyenne Mountain was a fairly big base, considering it was inside a mountain, but it was still an enclosed space that should theoretically be difficult to disappear within. Jack had already checked with the front guard and his wayward archeologist had stayed the night in the mountain. He'd looked in all the public gathering areas he could think of, discovered that Carter had a lab - though it was empty - and was now tracking down Daniel's office.

Interestingly enough, Daniel Jackson was listed as having an office, but there was no phone extension or floor and room number on the roster. After an hour of searching, Jack decided that his guess and check method wasn't working and did what he did best: he went back to the mess hall, got a bowl of chocolate pudding, and settled in to wait. The man would have to get hungry and surface at some point.

Four cups of coffee, two bowls of pudding, and a slice of apple pie later, Daniel Jackson entered the mess hall. His long hair was wild, like he'd forgotten it was there, and his expression suggested that he hadn't slept in a day or two. Somehow, beneath the unkempt surface appearance, Jack could see that Daniel was actually a very attractive man. He had a strong jaw and keen blue eyes, eyes that were now piercing Jack with what almost felt like icy bolts being struck through his chest. For a moment Jack wondered if this was what it was like to be hit with one of those energy weapons, all of his senses pushed through beyond their natural limits as he sat frozen and stunned.

Jack stared helplessly as Daniel walked towards him, truly acknowledging Jack for the first time. Daniel sat down across from him, his hands folded neatly on the surface of the table as he considered Jack.

"Why hello, Jack? Do you mind if I sit here?" Jack asked, pitching his voice higher in a bad impersonation of Daniel's voice. "Not at all. Why don't you get yourself a cup of coffee and a slice of pie and stay a while?" Jack continued in his normal tone.

"Uh huh," Daniel said slowly, watching Jack like someone might watch a small animal doing something moderately amusing.

"We need to talk," Jack said when it was clear that Daniel wasn't going to continue with anything more enlightening.

One of Daniel's eyebrows arched in wordless question.

Jack sighed and used his fork to trace idle patterns in the leftover crumbs on his plate. "What happened yesterday, that can't happen again," he said, any traces of humor or mockery gone from his voice. Jack hated being serious, he hated having to care about something enough to take it seriously, but when it came to his team not dying, he cared. Even though he wasn't sure he could even stand to be in the same room as his teammates, they were now his responsibility.

"Well, Jack, if you're that unnerved by aliens with energy weapons, perhaps you should ask to be reassigned to a less dangerous posting?" Daniel asked.

Jack bristled at the sarcasm in Daniel's voice. He'd flown dangerous missions, nearly died a dozen times over in the line of duty and fought in more battles than he cared to remember. He wasn't unnerved by being shot at by aliens - well, only a little bit, because of the alien part - but he was unnerved by nearly losing a member of his team. "I don't care about aliens shooting at us. The way I figure it, that will probably be our standard reception. However, when they started shooting, you were no where in sight."

Daniel shrugged. "I was back at the 'gate. I would have came back if you'd needed help. You were all nearly there anyway."

"That's not the point," Jack said, almost growling.

"Are you going to tell me the point?" Daniel asked, not having lost his flippant tone. "Because, usually that statement is more effective when it's followed by the point you're trying to make."

"My point is that I'm in command of the team, you obey my orders, you do what I tell you," Jack said, the muscles in his forearms showing as he clenched the fork in his hand. "You don't go running off by yourself, so that when you're shot or kidnapped, I'll know about it. Understood?"

Daniel smirked. "Not so much. I have a job to do, so do you. As far as I figure, you do yours and I'll do mine, and we can stay out of each others way. It's better like that."

Jack shook his head. "Not happening. There's only one person in charge, and that's me."

"Yeah, no," Daniel said.

"Yeah, yes," Jack countered and then softened. "Look, I get it. I'm the big dumb jock, I probably look the same as the ones that tormented you and your geeky friends all throughout high school. You don't like me and you don't trust me. But I'm telling you, I've got your back. We're team."

"We're all in this together?" Daniel added with an unbecoming snort.

"Yes," Jack said firmly. "You're my team, which means if someone is bothering you, I'll take care of it."

Daniel laughed, his open palm slapping against the table, and then stood. "You've got it all backwards, Jack. I'm not afraid of you. You, on the other hand, should be afraid of me." It was the first non-sarcastic thing Daniel had said to him.

"Is that a threat?" Jack asked incredulously as he looked the skinny archeologist up and down. While certainly attractive, there was no way he could take Jack in a fight, even if Jack wasn't military trained.

"It's a warning," Daniel said, taking a step back without looking away from Jack. "And you'd be wise to heed it. Stay away from me."

Jack stared, his mouth hanging open as he watched Daniel move swiftly from the mess hall. That was not at all how'd he'd envisioned that conversation. He'd pictured Daniel ducking his head contritely and promising to give Jack a chance to prove he wasn't a bad guy despite his brawny exterior. Instead, Jack had been threatened - he could clearly hear the threat no matter what Daniel had called it - and then effortlessly dismissed.

With his brilliant and well thought out plan laid to waste, Jack thoughtfully examined the crop circle pattern he'd etched in his pie crust crumbs. "Well, any bright ideas?" he asked himself, pausing to glare at a passing airman who was staring wide-eyed with confusion.

Thoroughly regretting the forth cup of coffee, and possibly the second bowl of pudding, Jack pushed himself to his feet and went off to look for his alien friend. Even if Teal'c wouldn't have any words of wisdom for him, at least he wouldn't act like Jack had a social disease either.

*****

The battle was nearly over by the time Jack realized they were under attack. It was their fourth mission off-world and he was starting to wonder exactly how many dense and dark forests that were practically devoid of intelligent life they were going to have to walk through. Turned out that this particular forest wasn't devoid of people, and it just so happened the civilizations weren't really pleased to have them traipsing around their territory. Who knew?

Jack hit the forest floor hard, narrowly avoiding hitting a particularly vicious looking tree root as he dodged the alien projectile that had come directly by his head. As he rolled to the side, pulling his firearm out of its holster as he went, his first thought was for his team. He knew that Teal'c, the alien warrior who could lift weights like nothing Jack had ever seen, was battle ready, and Captain Carter damn well better be able to hold her own in a firefight if she was in the USAF, but Jack suddenly realized that he had no idea about the defensive capabilities of his frequently missing archeologist.

From his vantage point on the ground Jack couldn't see much except for the odd looking elongated bullets that were still being fired in their direction and his team was scattered somewhere in the thick foliage. For all Jack knew they could be a few feet away from him and taking cover behind a thick tree trunk or under the huge leaves of the shrub to his immediate left. "Daniel," Jack called, with his voice pitched low in a feeble attempt to not give away his own position.

There was no response and Jack's mind was filled with images of Daniel laying somewhere nearby, injured or dying, or already dead. "Jackson!" he called, a little bit louder this time. Another volley from the natives drowned out the answer, if there had been one at all, and Jack crawled to where he might have a chance of seeing who was firing at them. When he reached a reasonably sheltered place, Jack slowly moved up against the tree trunk and peered around to find a group of seven or eight people who were dressed in jungle-style attire that might have fit right in to a cheesy movie from the 70's. They had weapons that looked almost like a crossbow had bred with a machine gun. The rapid fire had stopped, but they were still aiming in the general direction of where the team had last been.

Jack barely spotted Carter out of the corner of his eye as she moved forward to a defensive position and was in just the right place to see one of the natives see her and aim his weapon. "Carter down!" he shouted, watching just long enough to see her take cover. He dropped down behind the tree, feeling the entire trunk shudder as projectiles hit it a moment later. The sounds of Carter's P-90 and a staff weapon filled the air as his team returned fire. Jack was just moving around the other side of the tree, staying as low as he could while still prepared to shoot, when he was tackled roughly to the ground.

A second later the air filled with weapons fire again. Jack stared up at Daniel Jackson, who'd managed to lose his floppy hat in all the confusion, and tried to make sense of what had just happened. It was easy enough to understand; Daniel had just saved his life, had pushed him out of the way of a bullet. Any soldier would recognize this act, but Daniel was no soldier.

"Say down," Daniel instructed, sounding just as irritated with Jack as he usually did.

"Like hell," Jack replied when Daniel got off him, but by the time Jack had rolled over Daniel was already gone back into the forest. The time seemed to pass in the space of a few heartbeats, but the weapons fire ceased along with the sounds of the natives making a quick retreat, and when Jack peered around the edge of a different tree trunk there were no native warriors to be seen.

Carter and Daniel were the first to come down into the small clearing, with Teal'c a moment behind them. Jack's quick eyes ran over the forest again, waiting for an ambush, but none came. He untangled his boots from a vine that would have tripped him up if he'd had to scramble for safety and joined the rest of his team.

"Nice job," Jack said, impressed and confused all at once. It was good to know that his team could all handle themselves, even his archeologist, but he hadn't even managed to do much more than take cover and keep himself from getting shot.

Daniel actually smiled and Jack was stunned by how much the expression changed his appearance. Daniel looked good before, but when he smiled and meant it he became almost ethereal. "I think we can mark this planet off as hostile, regardless of Goa'uld occupation status," he said, brushing a long strand of hair away from his eyes.

"Ya think?" Jack asked, finding himself returning the smile. He turned around in the forest, searching for his bearings. "Does anyone remember where we parked?"

"The Chapa'ai is this direction, O'Neill," Teal'c said, direction his staff weapon back through the mess of debris that was created by their battle.

"Nice one, T," Jack complimented. He'd only taught Teal'c the phrase about 'where did we park' a few days earlier, but it seemed to have stuck.

They walked in silence for a while and Jack fell back so that he was walking well behind Daniel and Teal'c. "Nice duck and cover there, Carter," he said, interesting in gauging her reaction. He'd never seen Carter anything but unflappably collected. Urgent or irritated, sure, but even under those circumstances she always projected an aura of calm and control.

Carter looked back and adjusted her hat. Other than the dirt smudges on her jacket and pants she could have just walked out of a military fashion show - if they actually had such a thing. "You saved me from getting shot, I think you can call me Sam, sir."

"Sam then," Jack said. He knew that a lot of teams wound up dropping the formalities of ranks and 'sirs', the close bonds created by combat and continuous danger overriding their military programing. "You can call me Jack, or O'Neill, or whatever. You know. when we're not around the General and all that."

Carter - Sam - smiled, and Jack realized he'd never really seen her do that until now either. Apparently there was just something about being shot at that put his team in a really good mood. "We'll see," she said, but there was a playful amusement in her voice that told him that she'd at least started to accept him as a team leader.

Despite the firefight and the few close calls, Jack thought this was probably their best mission yet. Now if only he could stop thinking about that moment where Daniel had pinned him to the ground and looked down into his eyes. Jack lapsed into a contemplative silence, wondering exactly what it would take to get his team to agree to a round of practice sparring when they were back on base.

*****

After a slow morning spent first in a briefing about Goa'uld activities near their allies - it was news to Jack that they actually had allies in the galaxy - and then working out with Teal'c in the gym to attempt to ease the boredom, it was finally time for lunch. The day had felt particularly grim and even though Jack hadn't been out of the mountain to see the storm coming in he'd heard about from the morning weather report he could feel it in the air. Everything felt slow and stifling, like there wasn't enough air to draw a full breath, and Jack was relieved to be able to sit for a while and focus only on what he was eating. It was the simple things in life that made it worth it he had slowly come to decide: eating, fishing, sleeping, and kicking back with his feet up. The occasionally rush of adrenaline didn't hurt either, just as a reminder of why those simple things were so good.

Jack made it a point to go before Teal'c through the food line. The man, and his muscles, were massive and Jack had seen first hand just how much food he could consume in a single sitting. He'd just finished picking his dessert, pumpkin pie with whipped cream that should go quite nicely with a second cup of coffee at the end of his meal, when he heard his name being called. His name was called again, a little louder this time, then followed by a call for Teal'c. Turning, he found Sam Carter standing next to a table with a bright grin on her face as she waved them over.

"Looks like we're being invited to the popular table," Jack said as he eyed Daniel and the two people he'd seen them eating with several times in the mess hall. Daniel didn't seem particularly enthused about Sam inviting other people to sit with them, or maybe he just wasn't happy about Jack being invited, but the other two were looking over curiously. "What do you say?"

"I have told that it is impolite to refuse a request for a communal dining arrangement," Teal'c said.

Jack thought that he was going to have to teach Teal'c a few more things about Earth before anyone got the idea that Teal'c might be dateable. "Let's go then," Jack said and started across the mess hall. It wasn't really about being polite so much as it was about perturbing Daniel. Daniel had made a fairly concerted effort to avoid Jack when it was at all possible and Jack was enjoying placing himself in the man's presence just to be contrary.

"It's good to see you, sir," Sam said as she moved a laptop off the end of the table so that Jack and Teal'c would have a place to sit. "I almost thought they'd keep you in that briefing forever."

"Me too," Jack said earnestly as he sat next to Sam and smiled in return. Sam had warmed up to him a lot ever since he'd saved her from being shot two days previous, though Daniel had immediately returned to responding to Jack with derisive and cutting criticism. Even now Daniel was sulkily focused on the cup of coffee he had wrapped his hands around.

"Jack, this is Janet Fraiser, she's the chief medical officer in Cheyenne Mountain," Sam said, motioning to the smaller blonde woman that was sitting next to Daniel.

Janet smiled, assessing Jack with a quick glance, and twirled a long piece of pasta on the end of her fork. "I'm sure I would have met you eventually, Colonel O'Neill. Probably sooner than later, given what Sam and Daniel have told me about your last mission."

Jack suppressed a shudder. Somehow military medical staff always sent him running in the opposite direction - usually because he wanted to be doing something that they would order him not to if they managed to catch him. "I'm sure you would," he said, reminding himself that he'd probably wind up under Janet's care at some point in the future so he should at least try to be polite.

"And this is Jonas Quinn. He's from off-world and he's only been here a few months, not quite as long as Teal'c," Sam said, introducing the man sitting on her other side.

Jack leaned forward and peered over at the other off-worlder. Jonas didn't look anything like Teal'c. Where Teal'c was broad, muscular and bald, Jonas was slender with ruffled brown hair. "Nice to meet you," Jack said, hoping the man understood English as well as Teal'c did. "Where are you from?"

Jonas looked down, his fingers tracing the long lines of the banana he was holding. "My home world was called Langara," he said quietly.

It took Jack a moment before he caught the was and realized that Jonas was probably with them because he no longer had his own planet.

"One day the Goa'uld will pay for all the worlds they have ravaged and destroyed and for all the lives they have taken. They will no longer hold sway over the galaxy when we have successfully liberated ourselves," Teal'c said, the words quiet but firm.

Jonas looked up at Teal'c, his eyes wide with surprise and his skin even paler, if that was possible. "We will avenge all we have lost," he replied, and Jack was forced to revise his impression of the man from a trembling scientist to a force to be reckoned with.

Now that the conversation was sufficiently awkward Jack turned back to his meal and dug in with gusto. He was hyper aware of Daniel's presence, even though the man hadn't looked up once during the entire exchange. What was it about this guy that he couldn't even look in Jack's direction? Jack couldn't think of anything offensive, or even rude, that he'd ever said to Daniel. He hadn't even suggested that he leave Daniel behind on a planet, not that Jack would, even if he'd half-heartedly thought about it every now and again. Daniel seemed to get along fine with Sam, and even with Teal'c when Jack was far enough away. Jack had seen Daniel talk with other scientists, with Janet and Jonas, and even with George Hammond on one occasion, which left Jack with the odd realization that it was just him Daniel was avoiding.

"It's raining now," Jonas said suddenly, his head tipped back as he looked at the ceiling with a serene expression.

Jack frowned. It was forecasted to rain that day, but for all he knew the rain had started hours ago or hadn't even started yet. There was no way to tell this deep inside the mountain.

Jonas closed his eyes but kept his head tipped back. "I can feel it in the air, almost like an electric current running along my skin. I can smell it."

Jack looked around the table, expecting expressions of incredulity, or at least covert glances that meant that the kid was crazy, but instead found everyone - even Daniel - watching Jonas intently.

"It's okay, it's just a minor storm. We can go up and see it if you want," Daniel said, his voice surprisingly soft and kind.

"I can get us clearance," Sam offered.

Jonas shook his head and took an uneven breath. "I don't want to see the rain here yet, but I can't get far enough away that I wouldn't be able to hear it."

The table cleared out pretty quickly after that. Sam, Daniel and Janet all hustled Jonas away, Sam looking back to tell Jack and Teal'c that she'd see them around the base.

"Maybe his people have like, super sonic hearing or something?" Jack asked, stabbing his fork deeper into his bowl of spaghetti to mask his discomfort.

"Perhaps that is so, O'Neill. But perhaps he simply misses his home," Teal'c said before he occupied himself with his meal.

Jack nodded to himself and finished his meal and his dessert, even though neither were as enjoyable as he'd been anticipating. When he finished he excused himself while Teal'c went back for seconds. The elevator ride to the surface was slow enough that it wasn't ear popping, but when the doors opened Jack could hear the rain pounding down on the surface of the road.

"How long ago did the rain start?" he asked one of the guards on duty.

"Approximately twenty minutes ago, sir," the guard replied.

Jack stared out, breathing in the damp air and wondering what it would be like to never smell the rain on his own planet again. It wasn't something he wanted to find out.

*****

Jack wandered the halls aimlessly, surprised at how at loose ends he felt on the base without his team around. It wasn't that he regularly hung out with them or anything, but he'd grown accustomed to Teal'c at his side and occasionally joining Sam and Daniel in the mess hall for a meal. The rest of his time was usually filled with work, and boy was there a lot of paperwork involved in traveling to other planets.

On this particular day Sam had informed him in passing that she, Daniel, and Jonas were going out to check on a science observatory station they'd set up on another planet and would be gone for most of the day. Jack had told her to have fun and had been taken back by the enthusiasm in her response that they would. Apparently some people just loved rainwater samples and astrological observations that much.

Losing half his team to a day of scientific revelry, the half that still wouldn't have much to do with him, shouldn't have made much of a difference in Jack's day. Usually he'd just nab Teal'c, spend a few hours doing things they could pass off as work, and then go settle down with a stack of dvds under the guise of giving Teal'c more information about Earth. Instead Teal'c was down one of the bimonthly "Welcome to Earth" support meetings that were held for all the off-worlders and aliens that currently lived among them. Teal'c had informed him that today they were going over Earth customs concerning food and restaurants and he could join them if he so wished. Jack had quickly made up a report that he should have got to the General days ago and hurried away. He already had received enough lectures about table manners to last one lifetime, he didn't need a class on the subject too.

After a spell of roaming aimlessly through the halls Jack found himself at the open room next to the gym that the base used for sparring practice. Jack had spent more than a few hours in there getting his butt schooled by Teal'c, but then again no one was able to beat Teal'c when it came to hand-to-hand combat, so Jack didn't feel too bad. Besides, sparring against someone who was virtually unbeatable gave Jack an edge for the rare occasions he did go up against mere humans. Jack had yet to get either Sam or Daniel to go for a team sparring practice, but he'd seen both of them in action off-world and had a feeling they were both quite formidable despite their more harmless appearances.

There was noise coming from inside the sparring room and Jack indulged his curiosity, as there wasn't much else he could do at the moment, and peered inside. He recognized the two men on the floor as being members of the special flight squadron that had arrived in the mountain about the same time as his first day. Around the edges of the marked sparring area stood the rest of the squadron, all intent on watching the fierce battle that was being waged. Intrigued and interested in what the special squadron could do, Jack moved up onto the small set of bleachers that was at the side of the room and leaned in to watch.

The squadron leader, a man in his late thirties with dark hair, was occasionally shouting instructions but was mostly facilitating the group of a dozen men and woman through the practice. It quickly became obvious that whoever won the match stayed in the ring and the leader directed another in to take the place of the one who had lost. Some of the matches took several minutes and it was near the end when a beautiful woman with long dark hair gracefully took out the man who had only stepped in after the previous match in under a minute.

The leader stepped in the ring, all of his squadron shouting encouragements to both him and the woman, and Jack was surprised at how well the pair complimented each other. Their movements were quick and graceful and they were very evenly matched. The woman stumbled at one point, and then neatly knocked the man to the floor when he moved to take advantage of the situation, her laugh ringing out over the room. At the fifteen minute mark they both dropped to the ground where they stood, apparently willing to take a draw when it was clear there would be no victor any time soon between the pair of them. In all his time in the Air Force Jack couldn't remember ever seeing anything quite like that. For the first time he really thought he understood the idea of two people moving with one mind and one being, something his combat instructors had expounded upon many times.

After being helped to his feet, the leader pulled up the woman and they stood close against each other as the leader dismissed his squadron. "What do you think, Colonel O'Neill?" he asked, still leaning against the woman as he turned to look up at Jack.

Jack got to his feet and walked down the seats of the bleachers. "Very impressive. I can see why your squadron was called in for this particular assignment."

"Well, when they want the best, they call us," the woman said, her smile more mischievous than Jack had ever seen on an air force officer. "I'm Vala, by the way, and this is Cam."

"Colonel Cameron Mitchell," the man corrected immediately, though the good natured smile hadn't left his face. "I've heard a lot about you of course."

"Of course," Jack said, wondering how much he'd heard about him and how much he'd heard about the O'Neil with one "L" without realizing they were different people. It had been something Jack had encountered a few times now and he hadn't found it any more pleasant as time had passed.

"Are you interested?" Vala asked, still grinning, but now twirling a long strand of her hair between her fingers.

Jack's eyebrows shot up.

"She means are you interested in sparring with us. Apart from the Jaffa on your team, you're supposed to be one of the best on the base. What do you say?" Cam asked. "Vala, and then me?"

Jack experimentally flexed his muscles and rolled his shoulders and then nodded. He felt well enough after the fall he'd taken off-world a few days previously and he couldn't let a challenge like that go unanswered. "I'll go change and be back in a few minutes. Don't go running off now, I know where to find you."

Vala and Cam smirked identical smirks. "We wouldn't leave you hanging," Vala called after him, her bright laughter following her out of the room.

By dinner Jack was sore and nursing several new bruises, but he felt he had adequately shown off his particular skill set. Sure, he might set Teal'c on the odd pair from the flight squadron as revenge, but Jack wasn't ashamed of his performance at all.

"What happened to you?" Daniel asked suddenly, halfway through their meal.

"Sparred with Cam and Vala from the flight squadron. That girl has a mean left hook," Jack said, rolling one of his shoulders experimentally. "Daniel, I didn't know you cared."

Daniel just glowered, though Sam was now looking up with an expression of concern that might have been comical if she didn't seem so worried. "Maybe you shouldn't spar with them, Jack."

"They were actually okay, not at all what you'd think a special flight squadron would be like. I think you'd like them," Jack said, digging into his pork chop and mashed potatoes with gusto. "They're fun."

Daniel and Sam exchanged a long look. "Yeah, just do us a favor and stay away from them. Hopefully they won't be in the mountain too long anyway," Daniel said, glaring at the tables around them like the flight squadron could be nearby.

Jack swallowed his mouthful of potatoes as he tried to figure out why Daniel and Sam seemed so against the flight squadron but nothing came to mind. Maybe they'd had a day of bad science and were grumpy, he thought before deciding that was probably it. Scientists were weird like that.

*****

Jack scowled as he finished his loop of level seventeen, the keys that he'd borrowed from the General's Staff Sergeant clinking together in his grip. He'd give the keys back, eventually, as soon as he found where on the base Daniel Jackson holed himself up. It was ridiculous that he didn't know where the office of one of his own teammates was, and even more ridiculous that Jack actually had to go track his difficult and irascible archeologist down.

The fight they'd had during the morning briefing had been pretty spectacular, Jack was actually surprised that Daniel hadn't leapt over the table at him, but he had to acknowledge that it had been a long time coming. Now, if only Jack could figure out exactly what they were fighting about, then he could find a solution and all of the storming out of meetings and the barely looking at each other during off-world missions could stop. Jack actually knew what was wrong; Daniel didn't like him. He still didn't know why, and Jack had gone through everything from the misconceived notion that he would be a bully to the scientists to the idea that he was eating the wrong flavor of jello and that was deeply offensive to archeologists.

At his point it didn't matter the reason for Daniel's intense dislike so much as that it stopped. George had been obviously disappointed that Jack's team was fraught with tension, enough that he'd commented that maybe they had better work some things out before they went off-world again and had postponed their mission. Jack had gone to his own office for a few hours to cool off, bouncing a rubber ball against the cement walls and catching it until his hand stung and his head was clear. However, as he searched the base level by level, his frustration and irritation were building up once again. If he thought that Daniel would actually show up he would convince Walter, one of the 'gate technicians, to do a page of the base over the emergency system. Jack figured that would just give Daniel the edge to know that he was being hunted.

Jack cracked his knuckles as he rounded a corner: he would show Daniel Jackson exactly what it meant to be hunted. He'd give the man a real reason to dislike him. He'd-

His thought process stopped abruptly before he could figure out exactly what he was going to do with the cup of jello he was picturing in his mind as he slammed into someone while rounding another corner. Jack found himself on the floor, feeling a little dazed, and staring up at a man he vaguely recognized.

"Sorry! I'm so sorry. I forgot to look, I was reading. I'm sorry," the man was saying over and over. A stack of books was tucked under one arm and an open book was held in the hand he was gesticulating with.

Jack pushed himself back to his feet and grimaced. Apparently he didn't need to go off-world to get himself knocked over. "Jonas?" he asked, the name of the man who sometimes sat with Sam and Daniel finally coming to mind.

Jonas smiled, his eyes widening in pleasure. "You remembered my name. You're Jack O'Neill. I've read all your mission reports. Daniel Jackson speaks of you often."

"Don't believe a word of it," Jack muttered as he dusted his pants off.

Jonas stared in confusion before shaking his head. "I just finished speaking with Daniel. He gave me these books to read. Do you want to borrow one?"

"No," Jack said firmly and turned to walk away before he realized what Jonas had just said. "Jonas, wait. Were you just at Daniel's office? And he was inside?"

"Yes, I was," Jonas said, his bright smile back. "I'm sure if you wanted to borrow a different book he would let you. He has many books in his office."

Jack nodded and tried to feel bad about the act of subterfuge he was about to perform. Tried and failed; some things were just too easy to feel bad about. "Yes, I think that's a good idea. But I've forgotten where Daniel's office is, maybe you could point me in the right direction. So I could find a book."

"What is it that Sam says?" Jonas asked himself, closing his eyes as he thought. "Oh yes. I am happy to be of service."

"I'm sure you are," Jack said dryly, thinking that the lack of rain seemed to have improved Jonas's spirits quite a bit.

Jonas proceeded to give Jack a rather complicated set of instructions and ten minutes later Jack was outside an office door listening to the sound of Daniel singing in a language he didn't recognize. Daniel's office was deep in one of the lower levels, well past the storage rooms filled with boxes of things that Jack didn't have names for. Jack leaned against an exposed pipe and listened to Daniel's voice, a little bit entranced by the music that was filling the surrounding areas. When it stopped, Jack blinked and took a minute to come back to himself, reminding himself that he was frustrated and here to tell Daniel to be at least civil before their entire team got suspended from 'gate travel. Jack didn't feel frustrated at all.

"What are you doing here?" Daniel asked before Jack even stepped inside the office.

"Looking for you, which I think would be pretty obvious since you're the only one down here," Jack said. Ah, there was the frustration he was missing just a moment ago.

Daniel scowled and refocused on the sheets of translations he had spread out in front of him. "You need to leave. Now."

"No, we need to talk, now," Jack said, unable to keep a sarcastic lilt from his voice. "I don't know what your problem is with me, but it has to stop."

Daniel's gaze landed on Jack the instant he moved to step inside the room. "Stay out. You shouldn't have come down here."

Jack stared and then deliberately stepped inside the office, running one of his hands along a shelf filled with various artifacts. "Well, I'm here now. So unless you'd rather have our next knock out argument in front of the General, I think we should take care of this here."

"You want to fight me?" Daniel asked.

"No," Jack said. He bit back his impulse to say I want you to like me, because where did that come from? "I want you to show a little bit of respect."

"Respect?" Daniel repeated.

Jack nodded, warming up to the topic. "Even if you hate me, you could at least pretend that you don't in front of General Hammond."

Daniel blinked, surprise flashing across his features before he resumed his typical blank expression. "I don't hate you. Quite the contrary," he said quietly, taking a step towards Jack.

"Doesn't seem that way," Jack said. "You barely even talk to me, and when you do it's to point out that I'm wrong or flawed or ugly."

"I've never called you ugly," Daniel said, though his lips twitched in an almost smile. He took another step closer.

Jack shrugged, trying not to admit to himself how relieved he was that Daniel didn't hate him. "Anyway, if we could just save it for when we're not in front of an audience, that would be good."

Daniel stared, one of his hands coming out to hover for a moment near Jack's face before letting it fall back to his side. "That's not going to happen. I shouldn't be alone with you; you shouldn't be here with me. But I will try to tone things down around the General."

"That's all I ask," Jack said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. "It doesn't have to be like this you know, I'm a nice guy, once you get to know me."

"I'm not," Daniel took a hasty step back and returned to his translations. "It's not safe, you need to leave."

Jack stared for a long moment, trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with Daniel. He'd thought they screened for mental instability before they let someone join a 'gate team, but maybe this guy had slipped through the cracks in the system.

"Go!" Daniel shouted, startling Jack.

"Going," Jack said, quickly leaving Daniel's office. Maybe Daniel was right about one thing - Daniel was not a nice guy, even though he was somehow very intriguing and puzzling.

Jack shook those thoughts from his head and went in search of Teal'c to see if he was up for a Die Hard marathon. That was one good way to clear any thoughts of Daniel Jackson from his mind.

*****

Three days later they were off-world, once again dragging themselves through what seemed like an endless forest with droplets of freezing water from a recent rainfall occasionally dripping down on them.

"How different," Jack muttered to himself as he untangled his boots from a particularly insistent vine. "Can someone please tell me what we are doing here?"

"We are looking for allies in the war against the Goa'uld, O'Neill," Teal'c said firmly, nearly causing Jack to jump out of his skin. "It is of the utmost importance that we start the seeds of rebellion and seek out those who can help us technologically. If we do not it is likely that your planet and my people will all die in the coming months of battle."

"Right," Jack said. "Good to know I can count on you to brighten the mood."

"He's right, sir," Sam put in. "Our sources say that there should be a settlement just on the edge of this forest, near the river."

"Uh huh," Jack said. Mostly he was thinking that he was going to have to sell his fishing cabin and find a new one somewhere where there wasn't any trees. No trees at all. Not a single- "Down!"

Jack hit the dirt along with the rest of his team, all of whom had finally learned to follow his instructions when they were under attack. An energy pulse hit a tree across from where Jack had just been standing and he grimaced as he started moving to a place where he would be better concealed in the underbrush. "Every time. Every freaking time we go to a planet someone wants to kill us. We didn't even get to say hello."

"Actually, it's only about 42 percent of our missions that we come under attack," Sam said from where she was crawling towards the same shelter that Jack had seen. "And about half of those times we'd already made contact."

"Whatever," Jack said as he rolled over to make sure the rest of his team was getting out of the range of fire. "This way," he called a little louder when he saw that Daniel was moving in the opposite direction, directly towards where the shots were being fired from.

"Daniel!" Jack said, the name feeling like a curse against his tongue. Jack turned himself around and started moving after Daniel. The man was actually rather quick and before long Jack had nearly lost sight of him. Finally Daniel stopped halfway through a thick curtain of foliage and Jack caught up enough to reach forward and grab Daniel's tac-vest with more force than was strictly necessary.

He would have said got you or some variation on that, but suddenly they were both plunging forward and sliding down a muddy ravine towards a damp river bed. They rolled to a stop near the bottom, Jack panting as the world came still again and he stared up at the gray sky.

"What did you do that for?" Daniel asked, a slurp of mud indicating that he was only a foot or two away from Jack.

"You're the one who went traipsing off in the middle of a fire-fight," Jack snapped, pushing himself to his knees and futilely wiping his muddy hands on his muddy jacket.

"I was getting enough distance so I could see who was firing at us, maybe see if we could get them to stop," Daniel said as he pushed his muddy hair away from his eyes, leaving streaks of mud on his cheeks and temples.

Jack sputtered and stared. "Did you ever think of getting to somewhere that you wouldn't be shot? Not to mention, I think we have enough distance now and we can't see anything!"

"Well if you hadn't pushed me over a cliff we wouldn't be in the middle of his giant mud pit," Daniel pointed out, his glare saying more than his words.

"It wasn't a cliff!" Jack shouted. "It's barely a rolling hill."

Daniel gestured to the messy trail that they had made as they fell. It was actually a pretty considerable distance, even if it absolutely wasn't a cliff.

Jack gave up, too irritated and muddy and miserable to bother making a rational argument. Instead he reached forward and shoved Daniel back into the slightly deeper and gooier puddle of mud directly behind them.

Daniel made a wild grab, latching onto Jack's tac-vest and pulling him into the mud with him. They landed with a loud splat and within seconds they were both scrambling in what was more like a school yard scuffle than an actual fight between an Air Force colonel and a military trained archeologist.

Jack was surprised by how strong Daniel actually was, even though they were both hampered by the slippery mud. Several times Jack found himself pinned down, only to knock Daniel's feet out and wiggle free again. The fight lasted for what felt like hours even if it was only minutes, and ended when Jack was pinned firmly into the mud with all of Daniel's weight pressing down on him.

Staring up into Daniel's mud covered face, his blue eyes the only distinguishing feature Jack could latch onto as he panted for air. Suddenly Jack started laughing at the ridiculousness of what had just happened and was surprised when Daniel started laughing a moment later.

Daniel helped him out of the mud pit and a few minutes later they were scaling the sloping hill back up into the forest where Sam and Teal'c were waiting for them.

The General had only raised an eyebrow at their appearance when they returned through the 'gate, but he had apparently seen that both Jack and Daniel were smiling because he hadn't commented or even gave Jack the look that meant he was annoyed. Jack slapped his hand on Daniel's shoulder as they walked towards the locker rooms. Apparently there were things that could be solved through a good old-fashioned mud fight - Jack had always suspected this was so, but now he had proof.

*****

A few weeks passed and Jack slowly became accustomed to the reality of Daniel Jackson not ignoring him, at least not completely. Daniel still seemed to prefer to spend his time with Sam and occasionally Teal'c. Jonas and Janet made frequent appearances at their table in the mess hall, but Jack felt more welcomed there than he had in the past. Daniel would even acknowledge his presence and pass him the salt when he asked, though not without a lecture about the uses of salt throughout history. It felt weird even thinking it, but Jack felt he might prefer the lecture to the irritated silence he would have received earlier.

So his team wasn't buddy-buddy and doing the soul bonding thing that he saw the rest of the 'gate teams doing, but at least now they could all be in the same room with each other without it being under direct orders.

On the days they weren't slated for missions or busy with other activities on the base Jack took to wandering down to Sam's lab halfway through the day to see what she was up to and relieve his own boredom for a few minutes. Even after Sam told him what she was doing, nine times out of ten Jack still had no idea. Jack had always thought he was pretty smart and pretty tough, though he wouldn't tell the military that, but hanging around his team made him realize that he was leagues behind when it came to space travel. He was better off sticking to tactical military stuff and leaving the alien gadgets to those who knew better and weren't adverse to potentially having their hands blown off or mutated or something.

The other reason Jack was visiting Sam's lab regularly was because about half of the time Daniel was there too. It was there that Jack started to realize that maybe Daniel wasn't exactly who, or what, he said he was.

Daniel, who Jack had always thought was a little bit odd, was knowledgeable about a lot of odd things. Not just old Earth cultures and pottery and all of that university stuff, but music and architecture and alien things. Things that a man who looked all of thirty-something with floppy hair had no business knowing. Jack knew that Daniel had two doctorates and that Sam had three, which was frankly just ridiculous, but that didn't explain how they both moved in tandem when the team came under attack. One mission Jack had seen Daniel pick up a discarded weapon, a complicated looking blade of some sort, and use it to defend himself against two attackers. Jack had actually done research, real books and paper and computers research, and discovered that while most archeologists could handle a side-arm, there wasn't anything in there about mandatory weird sword training.

It wasn't just about knowing things, or the way that Daniel's movements sometimes seemed too fluid and quick, but also there was the way Daniel seemed to live off of coffee and little else. To be fair that was about half of the people on the base, but when Jack thought about it, he could only rarely ever recall seeing Daniel eat part of an MRE while they were stranded overnight in a cave-in. Daniel, with all of his strange grace, his impressive and versatile mind, and his carefully guarded expressions, was occupying a fair amount of Jack's free thinking space.

Jack had seen the impossible before, he saw the improbable on a day-to-day basis, but two missions ago Daniel had fallen from an impressive height from a tree. Jack had gone racing through the forest in half-panic, that sure he would find the archeologist broken and mangled at the bottom of the tree trunk. Instead when he came to the place Daniel had landed there was no sign of his fall other than a set of deep shoe prints. Daniel was standing a few feet away and peering up to examine the markings on another tree, absently pointing out that they were directional signs to the nearby civilization.

His first thought had been that maybe Daniel had been bit by a mutant flying squirrel, but that didn't seem too likely. And besides, Jack had placed a bowl of assorted nuts on the lunch table the next day and Daniel hadn't seemed remotely interested. Ruling out the mutant flying squirrel theory, Jack was left with a few other options that seemed likely to varying degrees. His personal favorite was that Daniel had gone sunbathing in a particularly bad type of solar radiation on some alien beach and had gained superpowers as a result. Mostly Jack wanted a nice alien beach, but he'd yet to encounter one yet. The only beach they'd found so far had been inhabited by giant mutant crabs that made very peculiar noises and clicked their claws menacingly.

Jack's other theories ranged from psychic possession to Daniel turning green and very large when he was angry, angrier than he'd ever been with Jack, but Jack mostly blamed those theories on Teal'c's slowly growing superhero movie collection and Lou Ferrigno. Then again, Jack tended to blame a lot of things on Lou Ferrigno just as a matter of course. Regardless of the source of Daniel's abilities, Jack was certain of one thing. Daniel wasn't entirely human.

*****

"Teal'c, buddy, where are you going?" Jack shouted down the corridor. He'd just been on his way to gear up for their next mission when he'd seen Teal'c hurrying in the opposite direction.

Teal'c turned where he stood and moved swiftly back to Jack. "I have been summoned to assist with a dire situation on the world of one of our allies. Samantha Carter will also be joining me. You have my word I will place myself between her and any harm."

Jack's eyebrows shot up as he calculated how quickly he could be ready to go through the 'gate. He was packed up for a two day stroll around a planet that was supposed to have some potential for ancient weapons and devices, but he figured he could be ready for some action in four minutes or less. "Give me a moment to gear up and I'll come with you," he said, already moving to the locker room door.

"You are not able to accompany us. General Hammond is sending minimal personal through the 'gate as our mission will be best accomplished by stealth. There is only one other technician joining us. We will return as soon as we are able," Teal'c said, bowing his head toward Jack. "I understand that you are a warrior, but the time is not right for your battlefield."

Jack stared after Teal'c's quickly retreating form. "See ya soon?" he called, feeling a little bit grim about being left behind. He felt torn as he entered the locker room and sat down on one of the benches. He was the team leader, he should be out their protecting his team and whatever allies needed their assistance. On the other hand, Teal'c was the best warrior on the base and would be better able to guide Sam through whatever they might encounter off-world. Jack knew the drill about using the best assets to accomplish a mission, but it didn't stop him from aching to be in the field instead of waiting helplessly.

The door opened and Daniel walked in, already shrugging out of his jacket as he absentmindedly went to his storage space.

"Take it easy on the stripper routine there," Jack said, wishing he could take back the words when Daniel turned to stare at him with his mouth open in shock. "I just meant that our mission is shelved. Teal'c and Sam are going off to fix something for an ally, and we weren't invited along. You don't have to get undressed."

Daniel's eyebrow arched but he finished slipping out of his jacket before he sat down several feet away from Jack. "I'm not sure whether to be intrigued or disturbed right now, but I think I'll skip both for the time being. So we're not going to P3X-328?"

Jack started to shake his head but recalled how enthusiastic Daniel had been about this particular planet. "Maybe we could still go. Would a day trip be worth your time?"

"You're talking about going off-world, just you and me?" Daniel asked.

Jack shrugged. "Sure, why not? We go, look around, pick up whatever looks useful, and come back before Sam even fixes whatever she's fixing. It will be like an archeologist's daydream."

"More like an archeologist's nightmare. Don't touch anything," Daniel said firmly, using one hand to rub his forehead above his left eye. "I'm not really sure this is a good idea. Anything could happen out there."

"Well, let's see what General Hammond says. If he says we don't go, we don't go. But there hasn't been any reported signs of life there for centuries, right?" Jack asked.

"Right," Daniel agreed.

"Then I don't see what the problem is," Jack said. He pulled off his own jacket and reached for his off-world clothing. Twenty minutes later they were on P3X-whatever in the middle of a shimmering meadow that was scattered with all sorts of ruins and odd passages. It was an archeologist's daydream after all and the expression on Daniel's face as he looked around only confirmed it was so.

Jack was content to stand guard and walk around, watching Daniel examine various artifacts. Daniel stopped every so often to sketch something in his notebook and very rarely he carefully placed something in a containment case to be brought back to the base. After nearly two hours with no signs of threat or impending attack Jack started to look at some of the things he was walking around. None of the inscriptions meant anything to him, all in languages he didn't understand in the slightest, but there were some interesting looking devices and pictures.

A particular drawing caught Jack's attention, a stone tablet that looked familiar somehow, and he leaned down to brush the overlong grass away from the inscription. Another hand was suddnely on his wrist, pulling him well away from the tablet, and Jack looked up to find Daniel like some kind of vengeful god looming down on him.

"Don't touch anything," Daniel repeated, his eyes fierce.

Jack stood up straight, his heart beating rapidly as his brain caught up with the situation. Daniel had been all the way across the meadow, well over a hundred yards away, right before Jack had leaned down to touch the tablet. "Daniel?" Jack asked, his confusion and the slightest hint of fear making his head swim.

"That was booby-trapped. If you had touched it without a Goa'uld symbiote your hand would have been burned off," Daniel said, his hand still tight around Jack's wrist. His skin was freezing to touch and Jack realized that in the few times he'd felt Daniel's hands they'd always been ice cold.

"You were over by that pillar ten seconds ago," Jack said, not looking away from Daniel's intense eyes.

Daniel sighed and dropped Jack's wrist. "We were lucky."

Jack reached forward and grabbed Daniel's hand, feeling the chilled skin beneath his own sweating palm. "You're freezing. And there was no way you could have seen me reach for that tablet from across the meadow."

"What are you saying, Jack?" Daniel asked, wrenching his hand from Jack's grasp.

"I know what you are," Jack said. It probably would have been wiser to accuse Daniel when they were both on base, but Jack felt reasonably sure that Daniel wouldn't murder him even when given ample opportunity. "You're an alien."

Daniel stared, his eyes widening in shock.

"It all fits. Your cold skin, your uncanny knowledge, your speed and how you can leap through the trees," Jack said, not letting Daniel interrupt with any denials. "I figure that your species is probably distantly related to a flying squirrel, but there are other possibilities. Lemurs perhaps."

"Lemurs," Daniel repeated.

Jack nodded. "I know you have some concerns about this, obviously you've been on Earth for longer than the Stargate has been active, but I'm sure if you come clean to General Hammond he'll see reason. On the bright side, you won't even need those 'Welcome to Earth' classes they're making Teal'c and Jonas attend."

Daniel pressed the palm of his hand to his forehead. "I'm not an alien."

"Your skin is cold," Jack said, prepared to go through his list again.

"I'm a vampire, you idiot," Daniel said, dropping his hand and watching Jack with caution.

Jack thought about it for a moment. "Well, that makes sense. I guess."

"It does?" Daniel asked.

Jack used his hands to make a weighing motion. "Well, as much as wormholes and aliens and flying squirrels."

Jack didn't have any longer to contemplate vampires, aliens, or flying squirrels because Daniel lunged forward and pressed his lips to Jack's. At first Jack thought this might be how Daniel fed as a vampire, but then he realized that it was just a kiss and he relaxed into the all consuming sensation of being pressed against Daniel. Daniel released him a moment - an eternity - later. "What was that?" Jack asked, not sure what he was most surprised about; the kiss or the whole vampire business.

"Don't ask," Daniel said, looking away tersely.

"Wait, I know this one," Jack said as he thought. "...don't tell?"

Daniel sighed heavily. "I've been trying not to do that for months."

Jack looked around the meadow and then back at Daniel. "I wouldn't mind if you did it again. Just, watch the fangs, would ya?"

*****

It took Jack a few days to come to terms with the fact that one of his teammates was a vampire. Actually, it took Jack a few days and as many vampire movies as he could find on dvd to come to terms with the fact that one of his teammates was a vampire. Buffy the Vampire Slayer seemed promising but Dracula and Interview with a Vampire were both quite concerning and left Jack wondering if he needed to invest in neck protection of some kind, but for the most part he just felt confused about how practically everything he knew about vampire mythology contradicted what he'd seen Daniel do. On a particularly dull Wednesday, five days after Daniel's revelation and the kiss that Jack still wasn't sure what to do about, Jack set out to find Daniel and wound up in Sam's lab with the rest of his team.

"I thought we might talk," Jack said when he could get close enough to Daniel without attracting the attention of anyone else. "About what we talked about last week," Jack added when Daniel just looked confused.

"Oh, that," Daniel said, looking over at the artifact Sam was taking readings from.

"Yeah, that," Jack said, then immediately wondering if Daniel meant the vampire thing or the kissing thing. "Wait. That that or the other that?"

Daniel frowned and his eyes flickered. "The first that?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah, that one."

"I've already told Sam and Teal'c that I told you. Sam was a little concerned that you'd tell, but I told her that you weren't inclined to do so," Daniel said. He leaned across the table to correct something on the paper Sam was making marks on to indicate what the artifact was doing.

Jack looked at Sam and Teal'c in confusion. Had he really been the last person to know about Daniel? "You told them about the first that or the second that?"

Daniel sighed. "I told them that I told you about our little fangs and blood drinking problem. Teal'c already knows, and well, Sam has the same problem as myself."

Jack turned and stared at Sam, his eyes widening when she just smiled and shrugged. "Don't you think as your team leader that I need to know stuff like this?"

"Not really," Daniel said, not looking up from the translation he was finishing.

"I was sworn to secrecy," Teal'c intoned.

Jack shook his head as he tried to wrap his mind around all of it. "So you're a vampire and an archeologist?" he asked Daniel.

"That's right," Daniel agreed.

"And you're a vampire and an Air Force Captain? Jack asked, turning to Sam.

"And an astrophysicist, but yes, I am," Sam said, looking up from the device she was prodding with electrical probes.

"And you're an alien and..." Jack trailed off and looked expectantly at Teal'c.

Teal'c stood even straighter. "I am a Jaffa warrior."

"We're not really sure what would happen if we tried to turn a Jaffa or a Goa'uld into a vampire. We think that the symbiote would repel the effects of a vampire bite, but we haven't actually tried yet," Daniel said absently.

"But Jonas is an alien and a vampire. And Janet is a vampire and a doctor," Sam said cheerfully, like she was delivering particularly good news. "Jonas seems to have some of the same special powers as me and Daniel, but Janet doesn't seem to have been afflicted by whatever it is that gives us our particular talents."

"You guys have super powers now?" Jack asked, sitting down on the stool that Daniel had shoved in his direction.

"I can tell the future, though it's rather hit and miss. Daniel can read the thoughts of others, but again, it's not really perfect and not nearly as useful as it should be," Sam said.

Daniel shrugged. "Sam and I are pretty close. We're like vampire brain twins. She got all the math."

"I did," Sam agreed with a smile.

Jack just stared, his mind blank because there just wasn't anything he could think to think about all of this.

"Jonas can emotionally manipulate the moods of those around him, though he's still giving off mood swings more than he is intentionally controlling the mood of anyone," Sam finished.

Jack stared. "Anything else I should know?"

Sam and Daniel looked at each other as they considered the question. "Well, all vampires have enhanced speed and strength, beyond what you've seen in the field. We're rather invulnerable as well, under most circumstances. But, I think that's just about everything."

"And none of this strikes you as being at all ridiculous? Anyone?" Jack asked, hearing his voice rising in pitch as he relied on the stool to support his weight.

Sam, Daniel and Teal'c all shook their heads. "Not really," Sam said. "It's just who we are, and have been for years and years."

"What about turning to ash in the sunlight? Recoiling from garlic and the sign of the cross? Not having a reflection? Allergies to silver? Turning into a bat? Drinking blood?" Jack asked, reeling off everything he could think of from his Vampire-Or-Not list.

Daniel shrugged. "Just the blood drinking thing, though none of us are particularly fond of the sunlight here on Earth."

"There's something about the sun's rays in this particular solar system that make our skin refract rather vividly. We haven't had the same reaction to the light on other planets though, which makes me suspect that it's perhaps the angle that the light enters the atmosphere on Earth," Sam said, her attention already back on her artifact project.

"Your skin refracts light?" Jack repeated uncertainly.

"We sparkle," Daniel said, the corners of his mouth so far downturned that Jack couldn't even bring himself to laugh.

Jack decided he would believe that when he saw it. "Uh huh. What about drinking blood? Is that why all of the enlisted marines have been disappearing?" he asked, mostly joking.

"We don't feed on humans, particularly not in a mostly closed society. Our scientific research base provides us ample opportunity to feed on the wildlife there. Alien deer mostly, though sometimes alien bears or alien wolves when we can catch them," Sam said.

"Right," Jack said faintly. In his mind he was picturing Sam, her short blonde hair wild as she leapt onto a full grown bear and bit its neck. It was a very peculiar mental image and he couldn't draw himself away from it.

Daniel was watching Jack carefully. "You're still alright with this whole 'your team is full of vampires and aliens' thing?"

Jack nodded, going from his mental picture of Sam hanging off a bear to Sam and Daniel taking out a Goa'uld in a single motion. "Yeah, I think I can work with that."

*****

Jack was still awake when it was just past midnight, even though he'd eaten two slices of pie and had stretched out on his bed and counted backwards sheep. What Daniel and Sam had told him had been echoing in his head all day, like a pair of unruly toddlers banging pots and pans in the kitchen, and Jack still couldn't make any sense of it. Vampires. Aliens. Kissing vampires. How was this his life?

Various thoughts and images kept interrupting his sleep-sheep parade. He could be crazy, completely crazy, and wandering around in an abandoned military base somewhere only thinking that he was going to distant planets through a wormhole with his alien and vampire teammates. That seemed almost likely. He could have been shot or been hit on the head and the whole vampire thing, and kissing thing, was just a dream while he was in a coma in the infirmary. That seemed like a reasonable assumption as well.

His mind tried other ways to interpret the information, eventually landing on x is equal to negative b, plus or minus the square root of b squared minus four a c, all over two a, but he thought that equation was for something else entirely. No, this was more like: aliens plus four vampires plus or minus one alien/vampire all over space travel through wormholes equals crazy. He called it "O'Neill's Theorem" and was in the midst of cleaning it up for public consumption when he realized that its practical applications were limited and finding somewhere he could publish it - other than the base message board - was unlikely.

Jack rolled out of bed, found his uniform pants where he'd left them on the strange potted ficus near the door of his quarters, and started walking through the base. One of the nice things about the base he'd recently discovered was that it was staffed by insomniacs. There was always someone else up in the middle of the night and they were usually willing to spar or run around on the basketball court in hopes of tiring themselves out enough to sleep. Jack thought briefly about seeking out Cam and Vala, but instead he found himself wandering deep through the levels down to where Daniel's office was tucked away. Or, he supposed he should say Daniel's lair, because vampires had lairs, right? Maybe that was werewolves or witches or something. In any case, lair sounded about right, though mad scientist-professor-librarian laboratory also fit the bill.

Daniel was sitting at the main table, his eyes darting back and forth as he examined a large text that was propped in front of him. "I know you're there, Jack," he said as he turned a page.

"I wasn't trying to be stealthy," Jack said, though he was disappointed that he hadn't had the opportunity to observe Daniel without Daniel being aware. There was something fascinating about Daniel, even without the vampire archeologist stuff, and Jack couldn't figure out what it was.

Daniel looked up and watched Jack move around the office. "I already told you that you shouldn't be down here. Does anyone even know where you are?"

"Nope, I don't need a babysitter," Jack said. He picked up a clay pot and turned it over in his hands before gently setting it back on the shelf of artifacts. "Don't you sleep? Ever?"

"Vampire," Daniel said, using his left hand to point to himself.

"Well, in that case, you and Sam are on permanent night watch duties when we're off-world. Let the humans sleep," Jack said. He sat down across from Daniel and started fiddling with a pen from the table.

Daniel raised his eyebrows briefly but settled back down in front of his book. "Probably for the best. We can see better than humans, hear better."

"Smell better?" Jack asked, sniffing the air suspiciously. Daniel did kind of smell like a flower or something, or maybe a fruit pie.

"Vampires do have better olfactory senses, yes," Daniel said, his tone indicating that he knew exactly what Jack had meant when he asked that question.

Jack frowned and started doodling on a scrap of paper. After a long silence, as Daniel read, Jack realized that he still had questions even after their earlier Q&A. "How did you become a vampire?"

"How do you think?" Daniel asked, giving Jack his full attention for the first time since he entered the room.

"I think you were alone, on some cobblestoned street that was sparsely lit by oil lamps, and you were lured into a den of debauchery," Jack said, imagining ruffled shirts and tight pants.

Daniel blinked. "Have you been watching Interview With A Vampire?"

"Maybe," Jack hedged.

"Right," Daniel said, drawing out the word. "I was on an archeological dig in Egypt, about one hundred years ago, and a set of unstable ruins collapsed on me. A field doctor, one Janet Fraiser, just happened to be at the camp for a few days. They pulled me out, more than half dead, and she came to my cot that night and turned me into what I am now."

Jack frowned. It was much less exciting than he'd envisioned, though in his mind's eye Daniel was now dressed in very much like Indiana Jones. The pants were still rather tight.

"She just picked some random dying guy to turn into a vampire?" he asked, trying to envision it in his mind. If Jack was a vampire he thought he'd at least get to know a person before he bit them on the neck and sucked on their blood. Well, maybe. He could see how Daniel, in his imagined tight Indiana Jones pants, could potentially catch a vampire's attention. Daniel had certainly caught Jack's attention.

Daniel tipped his head to the side and idly ran his finger down the edge of the page he was reading. "Most vampires choose to take a mate and turn them, but Janet was never fond of that practice. She found the necessary deceit too cloying. But she was lonely and she'd heard of me in her travels, and I was dying and would soon be gone if she did nothing. Believe it or not, at the time I had actually published about archeological evidence that proved the existence of vampires."

Jack couldn't help but laugh. "So, first it was vampires in Egyptian dig sites and a hundred years later it's the pyramids are evidence of aliens on Earth? What's next?"

"I would like to point out that I was right both times, even if very few people will ever have the opportunity to acknowledge it," Daniel said. "Back to your question; Janet came to my cot and told me I wouldn't survive the night, but if I wanted to join her in eternal life she would take me on that journey. I agreed and we were traveling companions for many years."

"Okay, what about Sam?" Jack asked, curious now.

Daniel smiled, the memory obviously fond. "Sam was supposed to be for me. Janet found her in an airplane crash in the mountains and pulled her from the wreckage. This was in the early 40's and Sam was a member of the Ninety-Nines, which is an organization that promotes the education, training, and advancement of female pilots. Sam was loathe to leave behind her life as a pilot, she loves to fly, but it was years before she was able to join the Air Force after she'd been turned."

Jack only really caught one part of that: "Sam was supposed to be for you?"

"Janet thought I longed for more than her friendship, vampires are rather lonely creatures by necessity. But Sam and I bickered rather viciously for a few years before we realized that we were far more similar than different. While we become very fond of each other there was no romantic attachment, then nor now," Daniel explained, still amused.

"Okay, what about the other vampires around here?" Jack asked, figuring he might as well find out now instead of being surprised by it later.

"Jonas was found on one of our very early missions, we and three other teams had been dispatched to lend aid to Langara. By the time we arrived the planet had been virtually destroyed, Jonas was the only survivor we found and he would not have survived the trip to the Stargate in order to receive treatment here. He helped Sam turn off a device that was spilling radiation that would have killed the rest of the human teams that had come with us on the mission. Sam was quite taken with him and managed to turn him and ease him through the first stages so he could be brought back with us," Daniel said. He turned the page in his book and began to scan the lines of foreign text.

"And Janet?" Jack asked, quite curious about the woman who had turned both Daniel and Sam.

Daniel looked up, a smile flickering over his features so quickly it might not have been there at all. "If you want that story, you're going to have to ask her. She doesn't like to tell it, but I think she's taken a liking to you and just might. If you're willing to ask."

Jack had always considered himself a fairly brave man. He went racing into firefights, he didn't back down when people were threatening his life, he had snide comments prepared for just about any situation. However, when it came to a woman who could kill him just by looking at him - probably - Jack wasn't going to mess around. After all, she was his primary care physician. "I think I'll pass for now," he said, ignoring Daniel's quiet laughter. "Okay, so what about me. Are you going to turn me into a vampire?"

This caught Daniel's complete attention and he stared at Jack like any sane person might stare at a huge venomous snake that was coiled around a mouthwatering cherry pie. "Do you want me to?" he asked, his tone giving nothing away.

"You did kiss me," Jack pointed out.

"I did," Daniel agreed. "You kissed me back. Do you want to be my vampire mate?"

Jack thought about it. He would be extremely strong, never have to sleep, and possibly even have superpowers. "Nah," he said finally.

"Nah?" Daniel repeated, his eyebrows shooting up into his long hair.

"If I had superpowers then I'd actually feel compelled to try and save the world or something. I think I'll just stick to pie and movies," Jack explained, barely able to keep from smiling.

"Uh huh," Daniel said.

"But, if you'd like, we can still kiss. And stuff," Jack offered.

"And stuff?" Daniel repeated blankly as Jack got up and walked around the table so that he was in Daniel's personal space bubble.

Jack leaned in so that his eyelashes were nearly touching the lenses of Daniel's glasses. "If you'd like."

Daniel took a slow breath, the cool air rushing against Jack's lips. "I'd like that very much."

They kissed and Jack's eyes fell shut. It almost felt wrong not to look at Daniel while they were kissing, but Jack decided he was overwhelmed by enough things without gazing deep into Daniel's eyes.

When they broke away, Daniel's hands wrapped around Jack's upper arms and forcing them a step apart, Daniel sighed and looked at Jack with sad eyes. "This is probably the most reckless thing I've done in a century."

Jack shrugged, feeling Daniel's hands move up and down with the motion of his arms. "My middle name is reckless," he said and wiggled his eyebrows.

Daniel laughed and gently pushed Jack away. "You're terrible. Go away and sleep so I can get some work done."

Jack found that he actually did feel like he might be able to sleep now and started in the direction of the door. "So, an evening with a vampire ends with a kiss and an insult?" he asked as he left.

"You started this," Daniel called back.

Jack waited until he was back in his own quarters and leaning against his door with a strangely content smile. "And I will finish it too," he said to himself. Somewhere, in the back of his mind he was almost positive he heard Daniel reply "you wish."

*****

It was two weeks later when Jack couldn't sleep again and he found himself waylaid on his way to Daniel's office by Cam and Vala of the Special Flight Squadron. They were already dressed in gym gear, Cam's shirt loose but showing his strong shoulders and arms and Vala's outfit way too tight for what could possibly be considered appropriate, despite the fact that it was just past two in the morning. Jack agreed to a game of basketball, eager for some physical activity to release his growing tension and taper off the sugar high that came from eating four slices of chocolate creme pie in the space of two hours.

"She shoots," Vala cried out as she arched up to throw the basketball in a move that had Jack and Cam's complete attention. "And she scores!"

Cam and Jack moaned desultorily as Vala ran a victory lap around the small court space. Somehow, despite Jack's absolutely best efforts, Vala was kicking his trash and Cam's as well.

"She's unbearable when she wins," Cam said, catching the ball that Vala bounced in his direction from across the court.

"I thought she was unbearable when she lost?" Jack asked, thinking back to a conversation he'd had with Cam in the mess hall after a particularly exhausting race around the base.

Cam grinned. "That too," he said and took off across the court while dribbling the ball.

Jack laughed and held up his hand for a high five when Vala came racing towards him. She stopped short, her upheld hand falling to her side and the ball was left to roll across the court from where Cam had shot it to the hoop and then fell still before retrieving it.

"Is there a Goa'uld behind me?" Jack asked, feeling unaccountably nervous.

"Vampire," Cam growled. He walked slowly across the court until he was standing even with Vala.

Jack turned back and found Sam in the doorway with her arms folded and her gaze fixed on Cam and Vala. "Oh, hey Sam," he said, and then what Cam had just said caught up with him. "You know?" Jack asked, turning back to Cam and Vala.

"We know. We're not blind," Vala said shortly.

Since this made no sense to Jack he turned back to Sam to see her response.

She glared, her arms still folded, but she made no attempt to come closer. "Well, you'd have to be completely without a sense of smell to not realize that this place was crawling with dogs. Sir, you shouldn't be hanging out with them."

Jack blinked. He'd never seen Sam behave this hostilely towards someone, even when he'd first arrived and she would barely look at him. "Why?" he asked, feeling like this was a very good question.

Cam growled and edged forward restlessly. "Because your precious vampire friends don't want you rolling around with a bunch of werewolves. They don't want to smell us on you," he said, his voice uncharacteristically bitter.

Jack blinked again and shook his head to make sure he hadn't been knocked down during the game and was suffering from some kind of auditory hallucinations. "Werewolves?" he asked, though it kind of made sense. If there was going to be vampires, there might as well be werewolves too.

"That's us," Vala said, her smile a little sharper than it could have been.

"You're werewolf fighter pilots?" Jack asked, just to make sure.

"Our whole squadron is," Vala said, regaining some of her previous self-possession. "It's pretty awesome."

Jack turned back to Sam. "And why was it again that I shouldn't hang out with them?"

Sam stared at Jack like he'd just asked why pies are round. "Because they're werewolves."

"That's it?" Jack asked.

Sam nodded. "Pretty much."

Jack considered this information and then walked over to retrieve the forgotten basketball. "That's not going to work for me. If you guys want to avoid each other, that's fine, but if I'm going to accept vampires and aliens then I've got to accept the werewolves too."

"Daniel is not going to be happy," Sam pointed out as Jack dribbled the ball and then threw it to Vala.

"Daniel can get over it," Jack said. "Now, are you going to join us? We could go two-on-two, guys verses gals, or werewolves verses vampire and human. What do you say?"

Sam shook her head, but smiled a little bit. "I've got an experiment to check up on. Maybe another time when we're more evenly matched."

"I'm sure Jonas would play once he's taught the rules of basketball," Jack suggested.

Sam grinned. "I meant that the advantage was in my favor. They'd need at least three more werewolves to even make me put on my game face."

Jack stared as Sam left and then turned to stare at Cam and Vala. "Werewolves."

"Whatever, are we finishing this game or not?" Cam asked, stealing the ball from Vala and racing across the court with both Jack and Vala in hot pursuit.

*****

"So," Daniel said as they walked through a very green and very damp forest that was slowly dripping alien rainwater down on their hats.

Jack stepped over a fallen log and pondered the fact that if the government didn't officially know about vampires and werewolves, what else were they missing?

"So," Daniel said again, clearly waiting for Jack to respond. When Jack didn't, he continued on. "So, Sam says you're playing basketball with the werewolf pack."

"Well, that's not entirely accurate," Jack said, turning back so that he could look at Daniel as they walked. "I also spar with the werewolves, and go running with them, and I think we're working our way up to badminton."

Daniel's mouth opened and then shut with an audible click. "Right. Can I just say right now that I think that's a bad idea?"

"Because they're werewolves?" Jack asked.

"Yes," Daniel said slowly.

"You know, I don't really get this whole vampires verses werewolves thing," Jack said, turning forward just in time to keep from running into a low hanging branch. "Wouldn't it make sense for supernatural creatures to bond and form an alliance so that you aren't alone in a world full of humans? What, is there some type of ancient and unforgivable grudge between your species?"

"That pretty much covers it," Daniel agreed blandly.

Jack came to a full stop and stared at Daniel. "Seriously? That's the kind of crap that got Romeo and Juliet killed."

Daniel stopped too and stared back. "I don't even want to know who your mind is casting as Romeo and Juliet in this little scenario."

Jack thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "That's probably for the best. But either way, I think your feud is stupid and I'm not going to stop playing basketball with werewolves just to appease you."

"Alright," Daniel agreed and started walking again.

"Aright?" Jack asked, surprised that it was that easy.

Daniel bobbed his head, sending rainwater spraying from his hat. "Yep. I figure at this point that your chances of being mauled by a werewolf or bitten by a vampire are pretty much even. I know which I'd prefer, and I'd much rather you spent time with me than the damn wolves, but I'll take what I can get."

"Oh," Jack said. He actually hadn't thought much about getting mauled or getting bitten. All of the vampires and werewolves he'd met seemed pretty civilized, not like they were going around hurting people or eating babies or anything. "Wait, werewolves don't eat babies, do they?"

"Although my first instinct is to say that it wouldn't surprise me, no. Werewolves don't eat babies. Being a werewolf is genetic, though most won't shift unless they're part of a pack. You'll commonly find werewolf packs in military teams and police units, and other very close and isolated groups of people who are under intense stress," Daniel explained. "You can't become a werewolf by being bitten or scratched by one, but if you survive a werewolf attack the results certainly aren't pretty."

"Good to know," Jack said, and it was. Cam had given him a pretty good scratch during a sparring match a few weeks back and it hadn't even crossed Jack's mind until this point that it might have been something to worry about.

Daniel nodded sagely. "This stuff isn't something you should be messing around with. Have you considered transferring to another base?"

"So, Sam and Teal'c are taking the other path around the forest. Are we going to make out in a tree or something?" Jack asked in response, not evening dignifying Daniel's question with an actual answer. Of course he wasn't going anywhere. This base was weird and crazy and all kinds of bizarre, but it had great pie. And the 'people' weren't so bad either.

Before Daniel could respond an arrow hit the trunk of the tree Jack was leaning against. Another arrow followed and Jack hit the ground. He stared in shock as an arrow went directly through Daniel's chest.

"Daniel," he gasped as Daniel fell forward. Before he could say anything more Daniel was dragging him into the dense bushes that were nearby and the world around them became nothing more than tightly packed leaves and branches with raindrops rustling around them.

Jack watched, mostly in horror but partially in fascination as Daniel managed to gain leverage on the arrow that was piercing his chest and then pulled it all the way through in one smooth motion. It wasn't even bloody.

"Can you even die?" Jack asked, both incredulously but with a great deal of relief as well. If Daniel had been human he would have been dead right now. It was a thought that was somehow deeply frightening to Jack, even though he knew better by now than to become so strongly attached to people he was regularly with in combat situations.. He should have known better, but somehow it seemed that he didn't at all.

"Under the right circumstances," Daniel said as he set the arrow aside. "For the most part it's very difficult and usually requires an all consuming fire or another vampire. A very powerful vampire."

Jack nodded and sighed with relief. All consuming fires and very powerful vampires seemed like things they should be able to avoid pretty readily. "When whoever was shooting at us has moved on we should go find Sam and Teal'c."

"Sam's fine and she knows Teal'c is too," Daniel said, tapping his forehead when Jack just looked confused.

"Oh, right," Jack said. "Psychic vampire powers do have their uses."

Daniel smiled and reached over to wipe the raindrops from Jack's face. "That they do."

*****

Jack rolled over in his bed, caught halfway between deep slumber and the confused wakefulness that only happens in the very early morning hours. He'd taken a long hot shower when they'd returned from the mission, washing away the freezing alien rainwater that had left him shivering after the long trek they'd taken around the villagers they'd unknowingly trespassed upon. A late meal in the mess hall was the last thing he really remembered, a thick roast potato and a pork chop, all soaked in gravy and with coffee and jello for dessert. He felt his stomach rumble at the memory and pressed his face back down into the pillow, fully prepared to reenter a dessert based dreamland where he could soak in a deep tub of hot chocolate and eat cherries directly from the tree that overhung the quiet outcropping.

There were no sounds, just a light wind tussling Jack's hair as he leaned back and wiggled his toes in the hot chocolate and the fall of boots near the doorway. Jack's eyes popped back open as he realized what he was hearing. In the near dark he could make out a form near his doorway; the two dark pillars of someone's ankles blocking the sliver of light at the bottom of the door were the biggest clue. He thought quickly about assassins from Iraq, aliens that had followed them back through the 'gate, Goa'uld that had occupied a member of another team and was now seeking out those who had destroyed its fellow Goa'uld. It never did cross his mind to worry about the vampires and werewolves that lived on the base - he was pretty friendly with all of them. Just as he was getting ready to make some kind of ninja strike that involved grabbing the table lamp and swinging wildly at the intruder, the figure spoke.

"Go back to sleep, Jack," Daniel's voice said, both irritated and soothing in the same tone.

"What are you doing here?" Jack asked, staring as Daniel walked away from the door and towards Jack's desk chair.

Daniel sat, the chair making a soft thump on the thinly carpeted floor as it was resettled. "Keeping watch," he said.

"On base?" Jack asked. He was all for keeping watch when they were off-world. To be honest they hadn't really met all that many friend aliens and being attacked in the middle of the night was a fairly common occurrence. Even though Sam and Daniel took all of the night shifts, leaving Jack to sleep and Teal'c to Kelno'reem, Jack spent many hours awake on alien planets listening for the first sign of someone sneaking up on their campsite.

Daniel sighed and drummed his fingers on the edge of Jack's desk, a short staccato that cut off after less than a minute. "You have no idea how fragile you are," he said.

"I'm not immortal," Jack agreed. "But I can take care of myself. Big, macho, scary military guy, remember?"

"If I hadn't moved in front of that arrow it would have killed you. Sam warned me of their approach just in time," Daniel said.

Jack considered that for a moment. "It's a good thing that she did then. But no one is going to come into my quarters and start shooting arrows at me." He hoped that was true, but he figured it seemed pretty unlikely.

"Jack," Daniel said, sounding exasperated. "I don't do this. I don't fall in love with humans, not anymore."

"Not anymore?" Jack asked, trying to ignore the way his heart beat faster at the thought that Daniel might love him.

"Sha're, a woman on Abydos where I spent the last year before all the Goa'uld stuff started happening again," Daniel said quietly. "I killed her. She'd been taken by a Goa'uld, and I knew that she wouldn't want to live like that, not even for a minute. So, when your predecessor, O'Neil with one "L", and Teal'c rescued us all, I broke away and I tore her head from her body."

Jack stared, caught between 'love' and 'tore her head from her body'. "Wow," he finally said.

Daniel sighed again. "Maybe I should have tried to capture her so we could attempt to remove the Goa'uld, or maybe I should have let her go. I probably should have turned her into a vampire when we had the chance, but she didn't want that. To her, eternal life in the body of the dead was an abomination. Seeing what has become of the Goa'uld, it's hard to disagree."

"I don't think you're an abomination," Jack said quickly, feeling heartsick at the idea of Daniel thinking of himself in that way.

"Give it time," Daniel said. "Even now, I want you, I can smell the blood racing through your veins and it's intoxicating."

Jack swung his feet out from under the covers and shrugged. "Makes sense to me. If you were a walking-talking-cherry pie, I'd have a hard time keeping my teeth out of you." He could feel Daniel's answering stare even in the darkness.

"You are much more to me than cherry pie," Daniel said. "Even though I tried not to let it happen, here I am."

Jack stood and blindly made his way the short distance to Daniel, feeling the chill of his skin through the fabric of Daniel's shirt as he rested his hands on Daniel's shoulders. "Here I am," he echoed. He leaned in, pressing his lips to Daniel's forehead and slowly moving down to his mouth.

When they broke apart, at Daniel's insistence, Daniel sighed again. "You thrive off testing my self control, don't you?"

"Like a warm cherry pie right out of the oven," Jack replied with a grin.

Daniel shook his head, the sound of his hair shifting filling the air for a brief moment. "Go back to sleep, Jack."

Jack got back in bed and settled under the blankets. "This is kind of creepy. You know that, right?"

"Sleep," Daniel directed.

Jack chuckled and rolled onto his side. A few minutes later as he drifted back to sleep he thought that there was something strangely comforting about a vampire who had just confessed to wanting his blood watching over him as he slept. Oh well, life was full of contradictions, what was one more?

*****

An explosion rocked the Goa'uld mothership and Jack fell to the floor and slid several yards before coming to an abrupt stop against a doorway. He lay still for a moment, assessing his various bumps and bruises, listening for the signs of an incoming attack, and mostly thinking how he'd arrived at the point where he was lost by himself in the middle of a hostile alien spaceship.

It was actually pretty simple. They'd gone on a reconnaissance mission, been ambushed and captured - though Sam had managed to call the other team on the planet for help before her radio had been taken and destroyed. When Jack had awoken he'd been alone in a cell on the ship and had managed to wiggle his way out through an air vent. Evidently the Goa'uld had never seen any of the dozens of movies and tv shows that showed people escaping through air vents in their prison cells, but Jack wasn't about to complain. When passing by a window he'd discovered that they were somewhere in space, which was probably a bad sign but at the same time was pretty awesome, and since that point he'd been wandering by himself. Hopefully the explosion meant the rest of his team was out on the ship causing havoc and mayhem. And trying to find him, of course.

Jack got to his feet and started off in the direction of the explosion. It was probably not the most tactical move he could make but he hadn't seen anyone in hours and if he was going to find his team or the enemy an explosion seemed as good a place as any.

"Wait a minute," Jack said to himself as he walked. "If Sam can tell the future, shouldn't she have seen us getting ambushed and warned us?"

"Probably," Daniel said. "Our powers aren't exactly perfect."

Jack came to a stop and swung around. Daniel was nowhere to be seen. "Daniel?"

"I'm talking to you in your head," Daniel replied.

"Can you do that?" Jack asked, peering up at the ceiling to make sure Daniel wasn't just messing with him.

There was a long silence. "Apparently. I guess it comes with the reading minds thing, but I can't really tell what you're thinking most of the time," Daniel said, sounding just about as confused as Jack.

"Great," Jack said, deciding it was probably a good thing that Daniel couldn't read his mind most of the time. "So. Where are you guys?"

"A few levels away from you. The explosion was Sam and Jonas rigging something, Teal'c is standing guard," Daniel said. "Look, try to make your way down to the flight deck. The wolves you're so fond of are on board and are working to secure all of us a path off this ship. I hope you feel up to piloting us off this thing."

"How did Jonas and Cam and Vala get here?" Jack asked, turning to assess where he was.

"They came through for backup, just before the mothership left the planet," Daniel explained. "We've got more work to do here, I'll see you soon. Stay away from the upper levels. There's something not right about this place."

"Apart from it being an alien death trap, I can't imagine what you'd have against it. The interior decorating needs a little work," Jack said as he made his way toward the end of the hallway. "Daniel? Daniel?"

There was no response.

"Great. Make my way to the flight deck to meet up with the werewolves. That should be simple enough," Jack grumbled to himself as he walked by dozens of doorways. "Oh wait, I don't have superpowers and I can't read Goa'uld! Doh!"

Deciding that his best way to make his way to another floor was to reach a dead end, because that's where the ladders or transporters or whatever should be, Jack kept walking and kept his eyes out for anything that looked like a sign for an elevator or a stairway. Goa'uld motherships weren't exactly user friendly, but given the Goa'uld themselves, that wasn't exactly a surprise.

After what felt like a long time of walking he reached a place where the hallway emptied out into a large room with what he recognized as a ring transporter set into the middle of it. Jack walked around it, looking for some type of control panel or a down button or anything, but finally gave up and stepped inside. Maybe it was voice activated like on Star Trek.

"Down," Jack told the ring transporter firmly as if speaking to a particularly excitable dog. "Go down to the flight deck. Hello?"

He stepped away from the edge instinctively as the rings rose up out of the floor and a moment later he was somewhere else entirely. Jack looked around the small room he was in, the walls leaning in until they reached a point at the top. This was not where he wanted to be. "I said down," Jack hissed at the now unmoving ring transporter and felt helplessly at the empty holster at his thigh. His weapons had been taken from him when he'd been captured.

"How quaint," a deep and kind of echoey voice said from behind Jack.

Jack spun around and stared at the Goa'uld he recognized as Apophis. "Oh, this is not good," he said to himself.

"A human," Apophis continued to speak as he walked around Jack. "I was told we captured some who were similar to myself, but you are not."

Jack smiled, wondering whether Apophis was just going to send him back to his cell or kill him outright. "That's right, just a human. Nothing to see here."

Apophis returned Jack's smile. "Quite the contrary. You look delicious indeed. Very appetizing is your scent. I don't know how the ones you travel with stand it."

"Thank you?" Jack asked, feeling more than a little disturbed at being called 'delicious'. He'd never heard that the Goa'uld ate humans before, but somehow he wouldn't find that entirely surprising.

Apophis laughed. "I may have to keep you for a while. Playing with your food is vastly underrated."

Jack stared, catching a glimpse of fangs that were only really visible if you knew what you were looking for. "You're a Goa'uld and a vampire?" he asked, hoping that it was just some kind of fluke.

"My host was a newly born vampire when I took his body. The full effects had not yet taken hold so I was able to slip deep inside and create a space for myself there. I am now immortal many times over; there are none who can stand against me," Apophis said. "However, there are none who know of my condition, of my unquenchable thirst for the blood of humans. It would be seen as a weakness even though it is the greatest source of my power."

"Great," Jack said dryly. "Just great."

"Sit, over there. I have many things to do before I can indulge myself with likes of you," Apophis said as he pointed to the side of the room. "My suggestion is to stay put and not cause trouble, not unless you enjoy suffering greatly before you perish."

"Just great," Jack repeated and went over to the side of the room to sit and think about what he was going to do.

*****

"Jack, where are you?" Daniel asked.

"About time you noticed," Jack said quietly. "I'm with Apophis, who by the way is a vampire and a Goa'uld and probably an entomologist for all I know."

"I'm not even going to ask," Daniel replied. "Where on the ship are you?"

"At the top," Jack snapped. "And Apophis seems to think of me as an after-invasion snack, so a little help before that happens would be appreciated."

There was a long period of quiet, with only Apophis clattering about in the background, and Jack nearly called for Daniel again when there was a response. Alright, just stay there. I'm coming to get you.

"What? By yourself?" Jack asked, gritting his teeth. "No, look. Get yourself and the rest of the team out of here if you don't have a feasible rescue plan."

"Stay there," Daniel repeated and then went quiet.

Jack felt sick at the idea of Daniel coming by himself to the rescue. Daniel had said that only a more powerful vampire could kill a vampire, that and consuming fire, but Apophis would definitely be the more powerful vampire in this equation. The only solution, to save Daniel and the others, was to escape by himself. Before Daniel tried to face off with a thousands of years old vampire that was also inhabited by a megalomaniacal snake alien.

Jack glanced around the room again, taking stock of his options, and his eye caught on an artifact that he'd seen in Daniel's office a few weeks earlier. It was probably a phenomenally stupid plan, but Jack had noticed during his years with the military that the stupider a plan sounded in theory, the better it seemed to work in practice. If that held true then Jack had the best plan ever.

He got to his feet and made it a few yards without attracting any attention, enough space to pick up the artifact and enclose it in one hand.

"Do you mean to attempt escape?" Apophis asked from the control panel.

Jack shook his head and walked closer. "To be honest this is a little bit dull. You'd think that there would be more going on up here. Maybe you should just have your snack and get on with it."

Apophis laughed and turned. He caught Jack's left wrist in one smooth motion and forced the artifact to drop broken in pieces to the floor. "Did you truly think it would be that simple? I have told you, I am unbeatable, I am all powerful, I am the only god who matters."

"You might want to check your ego at the door before you pop your spaceship here," Jack pointed out, purposefully keep his captured limb loose and limp.

"You're right, I am bored. Time for a snack," Apophis said and walked back to the throne chair, dragging Jack with him.

It was incredibly awkward to be pulled onto Apophis's lap, like alien Santa Claus mets a really weird military space porno or something, but Jack settled himself and watched carefully. Sure enough Apophis's eyes flickered closed as he brought his mouth to Jack's neck. There was just enough time for Jack to pull out the power source he'd taken from the artifact, snap it in his fist and then shove the burning element into Apophis's face.

The artifact Jack had taken was one with which he'd nearly lit Daniel's office on fire a few weeks ago. Daniel had removed the power source to show Jack how it was already damaged, and therefore it had to be handled carefully and that Jack shouldn't be messing with his delicate artifacts at all because some of them were dangerous. At the time Jack had ignored the message in favor of kissing Daniel senseless, but at least he actually remembered what the damned thing looked like.

Jack was screaming because the burning in his hand felt absolutely terrible, but it was nothing compared to the sound of Apophis's scream as he leapt to his feet and clawed at his face. It wasn't an all consuming fire, but it was close enough considering he'd shoved it directly into the vampire-Goa'uld's eyes.

Trying to ignore the burning throb in his hand Jack raced to the ring transporter only to have it activate just before he arrived. He nearly collapsed to the floor, certain that it would be Jaffa reinforcements here to kill him, but blinked when he saw uniforms from the Stargate Program instead.

Daniel and Cam reached out with one motion and pulled him into the ring transporter and Teal'c activated it to return them to the original room Jack had been transported from.

"Are you insane?" Daniel asked as they hurried through the ship. "I tell you to go to the flight deck and instead you go directly to Apophis."

"It's not like you supplied a map," Jack pointed out, cradling his burnt hand to his chest as he jogged and did his best not to black out or collapse.

"I'm with him," Cam said as he jogged along beside Vala.

"I thought you were very brave," Vala said as she leaned forward to wink at Jack.

Jack shook his head. "Whatever. Next time when you say 'go to the flight deck' you could at least tell me what I should be avoiding."

"I could explain the layout of the Goa'uld Ha'tak to you," Jonas said quickly. "I found some very interesting blueprints in a terminal Sam and I managed to get working long enough to download most of the database."

"Great, whatever," Jack said, focusing his sights on coffee and jello and three types of pie and a movie marathon when he returned to the base. If anything could keep him going it was the motivation of three types of pie.

"We're very glad you're alright," Sam said as they approached a doorway.

"Indeed," Teal'c added. "I was unaware that Apophis had such power. This is very troubling."

Jack sighed as they went through some kind of transporter and wound up on what was very obviously a flight deck, with several werewolves from Cam and Vala's squadron waiting for them at a grouping of Death Gliders. "Yeah, troubling isn't quite a strong enough word in this case."

"Let's get back to the base before we worry about that," Daniel said, stopping next to one of the gliders. "I can't fly one of these, and neither can you in your condition. I'll see you on the planet."

Jack leaned in for a quick kiss and then climbed in the back of the Death Glider, smiling when Vala climbed in the front seat. "Try not to kill Cam," he instructed Daniel as he watched the rest of the group start loading up in the gliders.

"Do my best," Daniel said as he climbed in the back of the glider that Cam was piloting.

Jack settled himself in the backseat and looked around. He almost wished that he was the one piloting this thing, because it looked really fantastic, but exhaustion and pain were pulling at him. The last thing he saw before he fell into a light doze was the star field enclosing the glider as they turned towards a nearby planet.

*****

"And a slice of pumpkin pie, that's my new favorite," Jonas said as he placed another plate on the tray in front of Jack. "And a book so you're not bored."

Jack rested his heavily bandaged hand on the book and smiled. He now had a bowl of blue jello, a plate of chocolate chip cookies, and a slice of pumpkin pie. The book was just an extra surface to hold food on at this point as far as he was concerned. "Thank you, Jonas."

"Sam says that it's traditional on Earth to bring sweet foods to people who are in the hospital, and she will be here in about thirty seconds to bring you a laptop that she is saying you have to hide so that Janet doesn't take it away from you," Jonas said, tipping his head to the side as he listened to whatever Sam was saying in the hallway. "She also says that Teal'c will come watch Die Hard again with you later and that Cam and Vala will come visit when they're done rolling around with each other like dogs."

Jack smiled, knowing that Jonas was using his power to bolster his mood and he didn't mind a bit. "I appreciate that."

Sam appeared exactly when Jonas said that she would with a smile and a laptop that was rather cleverly disguised in a field report binder.

"You realize that I should only be in here overnight, right?" Jack asked as he made room for the laptop on his infirmary bed.

"I locked the computer so that dvds won't play until after you've finished your backlogged reports," Sam said with a sly grin. "You're welcome.

Jack gaped as Sam and Jonas walked hand in hand out of the infirmary. He was pretty much at a loss for words.

"She's doing it for your own good, you know," Daniel said as he emerged from the folded curtains bunched at one side of Jack's bed.

"You could not stalk me, you know," Jack pointed out, even though he didn't mind too much. Mostly.

Daniel shrugged, took a seat next to Jack and handed over a fork. "I'm useful."

"That you are," Jack said as he immediately dug into the slice of pumpkin pie. "Are you done being an overprotective jerk now?"

"Not really," Daniel admitted.

Jack nodded, not really expecting to hear otherwise. "Glad we've got that cleared up," he said around a mouthful of pie.

Daniel handed him a napkin and looked away. "Apophis already took Sha're from me. I won't let him have you too."

"That's acceptable, but until Apophis shows up here on base would you mind letting me shower in privacy?" Jack asked plaintively.

"I thought you liked it when I showered with you?" Daniel asked quietly, raising his eyebrows when a nurse was sufficiently far enough away that she couldn't hear them.

"Watching me shower, in case I slip and fall, and showering with me are two different things entirely. Just like watching me sleep and sleeping with me," Jack pointed out.

"Less of the former and more of the latter?" Daniel guessed.

Jack smiled. "I can live with that arrangement."

They couldn't kiss because they were in the middle of the infirmary on a very busy day, but Daniel stayed at Jack's bedside and read the book that Jonas had brought while Jack ate his pie and decided that this very strange base wasn't so bad after all.

The End