a Stargate SG-1 story
by
Destina Fortunato
Author's notes are at the end of the story.
For The Wild Mole
Jack roused himself from thoughts of napping on the couch while the Simpsons droned on in the background, and asked, "Is that all, Walter?"
"No, sir."
"Of course not." Jack shook his head and looked down at his clasped hands while Walter launched into round two of his daily plan.
"You asked about the casualty statistics for the first seven years of operation. Major Miller prepared a statistical analysis that clearly lays out the trends for you. I think you'll find it very interesting."
"I'll find it...what?"
"Well, you did ask for it, sir."
"So I did, so I did." Jack clasped his hands, then unclasped them. He looked up at the walls, which seemed about a foot closer than they had been yesterday; the grid pattern obstructing his view of the briefing room seemed to be collapsing in on itself. "Walter, do you ever take a vacation?"
"Sir?"
"A vacation. You know, approved leave time? Do you ever take leave and...actually leave? Or do you just hang around to torture me?"
"I love my job, sir."
Jack squinted suspiciously at him. Walter's face remained smoothly blank. "I'll just bet you do," he said, his squint deepening. He pushed back from the desk and headed out of the office with Walter on his heels.
"Sir? Where are you going?"
"It's time for a vacation," Jack said, and lengthened his stride.
"Sir, pardon me for saying so, but you don't have time for vacation. You-"
"I'm in charge here, Walter. I have time for anything I want." He stopped abruptly and reached for the clipboard; Walter clutched it closer on instinct. Jack ripped it right out of his arms, then snatched the pencil from Walter and crossed out everything he'd been scheduled to do. "Look! Free time!" He pressed the clipboard back into Walter's arms and made a beeline for the control room, running down the stairs two at a time in a way he hadn't in months.
"Sir!" Walter stood at the top of the stairs, staring at Jack with a faintly scandalized look, as though he'd just committed a misdemeanor in front of his eyes. Then he followed more slowly, his scowl deepening.
"Sergeant Preston," Jack said, as he came to a halt behind her. "Recommend a nice, restful vacation destination."
She swiveled around in her chair, eyes wide. Jack loved it. No one knew what to expect from him. If it had been a plan to keep them off guard, he would have congratulated himself, because it was working perfectly. As it was, he couldn't take credit for it, just a certain gleeful satisfaction in it. "Sir?" she asked, in a tone that told him she was aware he was completely insane.
"There's lovely P44-523, complete with lava baths and steam vents. And then there's P77-807, with its snow-capped peaks and incessant blizzards. Hey! Here's an idea. What about P2X-909?"
"Sir, that's where SG-1 is right now."
"Imagine that," Jack said brightly. "Walter! Gear me up. I'm taking a break."
"A break," Walter echoed.
"Yes. It's a jail break, Walter. I'm tired of bread and water. I need some real food. And some trees. Trees would be good. Because if I hang around here one more minute, I'm going to go nuts."
"Apparently," Walter muttered.
"Gear," Jack said happily, and patted him on the shoulder. It was going to be a beautiful day on P2X-909.
*****
As it turned out, P2X-909 was, at the moment Jack stepped out of the gate, undergoing one of the worst torrential downpours it had ever been Jack's misfortune to gate into. By the time he reached the city, he was soaked through to the bone. Getting out of the damned mountain had been a lot more attractive while he was still dry. "Nice day for a walk," he told Teal'c, when Teal'c held the door of the library open for him; he dripped a trail all the way through the lobby and tried to ignore the disdainful looks of the Merangians.
"You are in need of dry clothes, O'Neill." Teal'c, who had always delighted in stating the obvious just to get a rise out of him, watched him with an understated amusement Jack had missed desperately. "It is unfortunate you do not have any."
"Yes, isn't it," Jack said, smiling bitterly. "Let's find Daniel. I'll steal some of his."
"As we are on the last day of a five-day mission, I sincerely doubt Daniel Jackson will have clean clothing to lend you. However, he is here within the library." Teal'c pointed to the back of the building; if he used his five-league glasses, Jack might have been able to make Daniel out among the milling throng of blue and yellow-clad scholars.
"Sir." Carter appeared out of nowhere, startling Jack, who spared a second to think fondly of the time when he would have heard her coming a mile away. "Is something wrong? We weren't due to report back until -"
"Nothing's wrong, Carter. Unless you count the tragedy of a perfectly healthy, sane man who was trapped inside a mountain as 'wrong'. However -" here Jack paused and waved a hand at himself, "-as you can see, he escaped."
Carter smiled. "Yes, sir. I see that. Sir, if you'd like, we can take you somewhere and get you dried off. I've been spending most of my time with the elders here, creating a trade agreement..."
Jack looked at her lips moving; he could see spit bubbles forming, could comprehend that she was giving him the full run-down, and a rush of nostalgia came over him. "Carter," he said, "how I've missed you."
Her eyebrows lifted nearly in unison with Teal'c's. He could have hugged them both.
Jack shouldered off his pack and rubbed his shoulders; the pack squished to the ground with a splat. "So how goes the negotiations?"
"Daniel Jackson has made considerable progress. He has spent the large majority of each day with the leaders of this city, attempting to learn one of this world's many languages."
Jack nodded, totally unsurprised that Daniel had gone straight for the cultural throat of the place. "Thrilling."
"You might be interested to see how the learning takes place," Carter said, and gestured toward the back of the library.
"Interested? Carter, I'm riveted."
"Yes, sir," she said, smiling broadly. "This way."
He followed them toward the back of the library, though if they hadn't been there, the sounds of laughter erupting every few seconds would have been his beacon. Teal'c drew up beside him and said softly, "It is good to have you back among us, O'Neill, if only for a short time,"
"Thanks, T." Jack laid a damp hand on Teal'c's shoulder.
When they had reached the cavernous back end of the huge building, Jack pulled up short with Carter on one side, Teal'c on the other, and took in the amazing sight of Daniel at the front of the room on a small dais, laughing harder than he had ever seen him laugh. On a constantly changing display board behind him, a word of some sort was flashing across the screen, and Daniel was saying, "Em-fres? Em-fres?"
The students broke into laughter again. "Em-FER-es!" one of them shouted, and Daniel began laughing again himself.
"I knew it!" he exclaimed. The students chanted his name, and Daniel made a little mock bow.
"He's a hit here, sir." Carter was watching Daniel with something akin to a leader's pride, which Jack recognized on sight. The tiny spark of envy in his heart brought a tinge of bitterness to his tongue.
"He should take this act on the road."
"I believe he already has, O'Neill," Teal'c said blandly. Jack shot him a sharp, suspicious look, but Teal'c was watching Daniel with a pleasant, untroubled expression.
"Right," Jack said slowly, and folded his arms across his chest.
At Daniel's right, a tall blond man was speaking softly to Daniel, who had stopped laughing, for the moment. His smile widened as the man leaned over and enfolded Daniel in his arms, and the students burst into applause. Jack stared at the unaccustomed sight of Daniel hugging this total stranger; he watched the man's hand slide up Daniel's back, into his hair, and his mind went blank. The little wheel of understanding was turning inside his head, spitting out random thoughts:
It's not like you've never seen him show affection before.
That guy is nothing to him.
Daniel wouldn't.
And then he turned to Carter, shutting off the parade of speculation, which was for later - someplace other than here. "So. You're almost done with the treaty?"
"As good as, sir. We could send SG-9 back here to wrap up the details anytime."
"Excellent." He carefully avoided looking back in Daniel's direction as he eased himself down at one of the tables.
The room had the smell of a library - a hint of musty old paper, with hints of wood and dust. He wrinkled his nose. The chairs seemed undersized to him, as though he was sitting at a child's tea table. He shifted uncomfortably, knees drawn up a bit too high, and noticed Teal'c had sunk down with complete grace onto a chair that was more like a footstool, in comparison to his height and mass. "You will get used to it," Teal'c said, and crossed his arms over his knees with easy grace.
"Right," Jack said, unconvinced. Involuntarily, he found his attention wandering back in Daniel's direction. Daniel, who was sitting down now, deep in conversation with the blond. His face was relaxed, his posture open, as though he was ready to absorb every secret and bit of knowledge these people could provide him. The man with him was smiling as well; his lined, handsome face brightened when Daniel laughed. Jack felt a momentary pang of irritated guilt. Daniel was probably relieved that Carter wasn't the type to bully him through the cultural end of their missions quickly. He was probably getting more work done, too. In fact, he was probably -
Jack frowned, because the stranger's hand was covering Daniel's, and his fingers were...moving. They might even be...
"Teal'c," Jack said softly.
"Yes, O'Neill."
"Who is that guy with Daniel?"
"He is Maranth, the primary teacher among this city's scholars."
Jack watched intently as Maranth's thumb ran over the back of Daniel's hand, stroking in even lines down his skin. He waited for Daniel to move away, but Daniel only leaned in and smiled, and Jack jerked back in his chair abruptly, so much so that he almost overturned the flimsy thing. "Damn," he said, and stood up - and in doing so, drew Daniel's attention like a magnet.
"Jack!" Daniel's face lit with a surprised smile, and his hand slid out from underneath Maranth's smoothly. He said something to Maranth and then jumped down from the dais to make his way over to Jack. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"A day in the field is worth two in the office," Jack said, despising himself for the hint of testy bitterness in his tone.
"Restless, or bored?" Daniel said, cutting as usual straight to the heart of the matter.
"Both."
"Ah." Daniel looked at Teal'c and Sam for a moment. "Are we leaving? Are you ready to go?"
"That depends on you. As I was telling the general, I'm finished with the preliminary negotiations."
"Hmm. Well, I've got all I need."
Jack nodded. His gaze strayed curiously back over toward Maranth, who was watching their conversation with interest. "Learning a lot?" he asked.
"You wouldn't believe it. These people have several languages, and they're all incredibly complicated. The inflection of a word carries significance the untrained ear wouldn't recognize." Daniel paused. "Of course, you're not really interested in that. I can save it for the briefing."
"I'm here, aren't I?"
Daniel's eyes narrowed, and Jack flinched inwardly. Uh-oh. "Yes. Yes, you are. Well. There's not much more to tell, really. Maranth has been incredibly helpful, and he's a good teacher. Everything I've picked up here, I've learned from him."
"Nice to see you making friends," Jack said mildly, and Daniel took the opening and ran with it, oblivious to the sarcasm.
"You know, that's a perfect example. In the Irebian language - which is the primary language of the Merangia - the word 'friend' has fifty-four different connotations. It could take years to master the simplest of inflections."
"Years you don't have," Jack said. "Because I'm hungry."
"Always the master of the non-sequiter," Daniel said, smiling at him again. "Come on, I'll introduce you to Maranth and some of the others."
"Ah," Jack said, holding up a finger. "Food first. How I've missed those MREs."
Daniel smiled. "I hope you packed in your own, because Teal'c ate the extras yesterday."
Jack raised an eyebrow at Teal'c. "Those things cost money, you know."
*****
Debriefing had to wait while Jack took his ass-chewing from General Hammond. Not that he minded much; it was like old times again. Hammond, however, had developed a few hard edges while he'd been away - or maybe it was just that Jack was getting soft.
"Precisely who authorized you to join an away mission, General?" Hammond said, and though he wasn't shouting, Jack still winced.
"No one, sir."
"That's right. No one. And just why did you think you had the authority to join an away mission without clearing it through me? Did you have delusions of grandeur? Did you suddenly forget that you're in charge of the damn place?"
Jack opened his mouth to give a response - something along the lines of a lamb's bleat - but Hammond kept talking. "Because although you were able to get away with this sort of horseshit when you were just the leader of SG-1, you are dealing with a whole new set of circumstances now. Do I make myself clear, General?"
"Yes sir."
"Good. Because if and when this happens again, we will not be discussing this on the red phone, Jack. And you do not want this conversation to take place in person." The slam on the other end rattled Jack's eardrum; he set the receiver down gingerly in the cradle and patted the phone once, for good measure. Through the window, he saw SG-1 pointedly looking everywhere but at him; they were well-trained, but damned if he didn't want to kill them all, anyway.
"Sorry, folks," he said, emerging with a smile. "Had a little business with George." Daniel pulled out his chair and sat down with something suspiciously like a smile. "Something funny, Daniel?"
"No...no." Daniel made the smirk disappear, though his eyes still shone with amusement. "I prefer to stay with the program. So no."
"A wise man," he said, to Carter, to Teal'c, to no one, and sat down himself. "So. I got the gist offworld, I think. We can make this quick. And then you can all get to your down time - which, might I add, I've increased to two days."
Carter was unused to quick, and had clearly forgotten what the word meant; her portion of the briefing dragged a bit. Jack was used to thinking of 'a bit' as hours, where Carter was concerned, but she wrapped it up in under twenty minutes, which as far as Jack was concerned was a major triumph. Teal'c didn't have much to add - Jack was starting to think maybe Teal'c was underutilized a tad - and Daniel was...well, still excited about that damn language.
"...seventy-seven different dialects...eleven sub-consonants..."
Jack looked at Daniel's hands flying through the air, cutting down syllables and building up vowels with their emphasis, and wondered if his hands were soft, or if they were callused like his own. The mere existence of that thought caused his eyes to close, briefly, as if protecting him against his own insanity.
"...glottal stops not unlike German..."
When he opened his eyes again, Daniel was drawing some kind of picture, a little diagram with circles and lines and wacky curlicues. Jack glanced up at Daniel's lower lip, which Daniel was licking every few sentences or so, and thought that Maranth probably had a fixation on the way Daniel spoke, that he probably learned a thing or two from Daniel, and it didn't have a damn thing to do with how many vowels there were in the English language.
"Damn," he said, and Daniel's monologue screeched to a halt.
"Jack?" he said, putting down the paper with the incomprehensible diagram.
"Your hour is up," he told Daniel, which was a bit unkind, considering that he still had about thirty seconds on the clock.
Daniel frowned down at the paper, then carried his frown up to Jack. "If you were bored, you know, all you have to do is say so."
"Not bored, Daniel. Never bored. Just...uninterested in the extreme." He rose and patted Daniel on the shoulder. "The bottom line is that you learned a new language, yes?"
"You haven't been listening," Daniel accused, and Jack returned his frown.
"I'm a captive audience. 77 dialects, forty...whatever...and a new friend or two."
"Jack," Daniel started, but Jack shook his head.
"We're good here. Carter? Arrange for SG-9 to pick up where you left off. Dismissed."
"Yes, sir."
They were all looking at him now. He imagined he looked tired, cranky, maybe like he'd gone completely off his rocker. All of which might be true. He sat back down. "Anyone up for dinner tonight? I'm grilling."
"I have plans, sir," Carter said, and Jack was pretty sure she didn't actually flash her ring in a conspicuous way, but close enough.
"I too have plans," Teal'c said.
Jack swiveled in his chair and fixed Daniel with a look. It took only moments for him to crumble. "Oh, all right," Daniel said, stacking his papers up into the messiest, least straight stack ever created. "But I want chicken. And salad."
"Done," Jack said easily. "You bring the beer."
An hour later in the locker room, he realized he already had chicken in the freezer, and salad greens in the crisper. "What is the world coming to," he said to himself, half in and half out of his fatigues. Daniel, who was sitting next to him in only his socks and boxers, gave him a puzzled look, but continued on dressing as if Jack hadn't spoken. It was, after all, his natural default.
*****
"So if you stop and think about it, it makes sense. What better way to make sure there's a perfect way to say what you want to say than to have a word that matches your mood and meaning *exactly*?" Daniel wiggled his toes for emphasis; his sock-clad feet were propped up on Jack's coffee table, and he was engrossed in a sales pitch for the Irebian language.
"Hallmark," Jack said, as he collected Daniel's beer bottle and gave him a cup of coffee. "That usually does the trick."
Daniel snorted. "Be serious, Jack."
"I am serious. Who needs a hundred different variations on a word, Daniel? Some of us have trouble with two or three. Language doesn't need to be that complicated. Just...say what you mean."
"Oh, I do." Daniel's hard stare was so brief that Jack thought he might have imagined it. "I'm just saying, it might be easier if there were no doubt about the meaning."
"How exactly do you think having more ambiguity will make things clearer?"
"It just gives the speaker more...range." Daniel's gaze was suddenly directed at the fire. "In case there are shades of meaning."
"Uh-huh." Jack went back into the kitchen to turn off the coffeepot. He didn't have to turn around to know Daniel was following him, so he continued in a normal tone of voice. "Forty, eighty, ninety...how many variations on the word 'friend'?"
"Fifty-four."
"So, how does that translate?" Jack busied himself with rinsing out the pot. "Like, you and Sam are friends, and you and Teal'c are friends, and you and Maranth are...friends?" He swished water around in the pot, squirted a little dishwashing detergent in it, and set the pot in the sink. Daniel was silent behind him. Jack rested his hands on the counter and waited for a moment; finally, he turned around.
Daniel was...oh, Daniel. Now he was getting it. Jack was sometimes surprised he was as slow as he was about certain things, with that brilliant mind. As if a revelation had just come down from the sky, Daniel's eyes were alight, and his mouth was turned up in a tiny smile. "It doesn't translate, Jack." He set his cup down. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. There's no way to express some of these things in English. Or in most languages on Earth, actually, with the exception of Japanese and a few South American tribal languages...but that's neither here nor there."
"Which still doesn't answer my question." Jack had never been so calm.
"No, I guess it doesn't." Daniel's smile widened. "Sam and I are friends; Teal'c and I are friends; Maranth and I are acquaintances."
"Friendly acquaintances."
Now the smile went to a grin, one Jack used to take for shy, but now he knew better. "Yes. And there is an inflection for that, in Irebian."
"And you and I are...we're friends. Right?" He was so, so calm. He was calmer than he'd ever been, calmer than when he took his first flight in a jet, calmer even than when he'd first held Charlie.
"No, Jack." Daniel closed the space between them, just like Jack had known he would, or hoped, anyway. "We're emfres."
"Which means...?"
In answer, Daniel cupped the back of Jack's neck with his right hand and kissed him, and just like that they were making out in Jack's kitchen. Jack had always thought he might be really bad at this, or that Daniel might hold back, but neither turned out to be true. In fact, if the way Daniel was pressing into him was any indication, Jack suspected he had a latent talent for kissing Daniel. Go figure.
"Emfres?" he repeated, reaching out to yank Daniel even closer.
"Meaning number twenty-nine," Daniel answered, and Jack thought, twenty-nine, fifty-four. Which just meant that there were a whole range of meanings out there that they didn't fit, but Daniel and Maranth didn't fit the ones he had feared, either, and that was all that really mattered.
"So what about context?" Jack asked, even as Daniel's hands were sliding up under his shirt. Daniel's tongue was doing something crazy to his ear, and Jack suddenly wasn't much interested in the answer, but Daniel was way ahead of him.
"Coming right up," Daniel promised, making it sound like a destination Jack had always dreamed of. And then, all of a sudden, they were there.
End
All comments are welcomed.
destina@ix.netcom.com
Author's notes: As per TWM's request, I built this story around the word 'friend' and the theme of ambiguity. It's a riff on a fannish cliché I always wanted to write. I couldn't resist.
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