"Daniel, how long do you think this is going to take?"

On the bright, cheerfully sunlit planet designated P7C-835, SG-1, flagship team of Stargate Command, nameless heroes of an oblivious planet Earth, meandered along a wide, sprawling prairie that stretched for miles before hitting thick, interspersed forests on the horizon. 'It's too early to be this bright,' Jack O'Neill thought in disgust as he shoved his Bugaboo sunglasses over his eyes and turned his face up toward the aforementioned brightness. Not even seven in the morning on Earth, and here they were on a nice, long, hot afternoon stroll. Only an hour earlier, when SG-1--rather, when SG-1's archaeologist--had been called to the control room to take a look at the UAV footage of this little slice of humiditiy hell, Jack had nearly been sent through the shielding glass between the control room and the Gateroom as a result of the archaeologist's excitement at finding a rather large temple on the corner of the screen. A temple that, of course, said archaeologist just had to get a closer look at...from the chair Jack was sitting in. And oh, if Jack happened to survive a nosedive through bulletproof glass, a closer look in person was a given.

The archaeologist and Jack's supposed best friend, Daniel Jackson by name, virtually skipped ahead a few steps, passing Carter and Teal'c to match Jack's pace and shrugged, his sharp, eager gaze sweeping the empty prairie as though he expected the sought-after temple to pop up out of nowhere at any moment. "I don't know, Jack--the temple looked ancient, Roman and enormous." Daniel ticked off each characteristic on his fingers. "If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say...days? Maybe months, depending on any text or unusual architecture."

Jack slid a bemused glance at his friend, who bore a purely straight face, and shook his head slightly. Daniel in full archaeo-mode was a force to be reckoned with; brain power, razor-sharp wit/sarcasm and all. Even Jack, incorrigible snark he was, knew when it was best to just graciously accept defeat--for the moment.

"Sam, were there any signs of civilization here aside from the temple?" Daniel asked over his shoulder, stealing any chance for Jack to make a comeback within an unembarrassing amount of time.

Samantha Carter shook her head. "Sorry Daniel; the only thing that popped up was the temple, and we're lucky to have found that."

Curious, Jack did a 180, walking backwards as he regarded his 2IC. "Why's that?"

"The temple is pretty much hidden in a dense copse of trees," Sam explained. "We had the UAV fly mainly over the prairieland, since it makes up the majority of the planet. On a flyby of the treeline, the bare edge of the sensors picked up a large structure." She shrugged. "If we hadn't programmed it to fly that close along the treelines, we would have missed it."

"Keeping that in mind, think of all the things we may already have missed over the past few years, then," Daniel mourned aloud. "We'll have to send UAVs to every planet we've already visited to make sure there isn't some finds that we passed right over."

"Yeah; that'll happen," Jack muttered, deciding it might be smarter to watch where he was walking, and turned back around as he righted himself, cursing an exposed stone in his path that nearly sent him landing on his rear.

"There is an obstacle in your path, O'Neill; pay attention," Teal'c informed him dryly, a beat after Jack pieced his dignity back together. Teal'c's companions each fixed him with assessing looks, the 'science twins' as Jack referred to them stifling grins.

"You're an evil man, T," Jack sighed. "You can't honestly tell me he doesn't understand humour," he added to the peanut gallery.

"Bad humour," Daniel corrected, "which anyone will pick up if they hang around you too long." He ducked a half-hearted swing from Jack, then abruptly stopped short, squinting ahead against the glare of the sun. Only Teal'c's killer reflexes stopped the Jaffa from turning Daniel into roadkill. "There it is!" the archaeologist cried excitedly.

"Daniel?" Jack asked dryly, waving a hand through the airspace the younger man had been occupying only a split second earlier, a la 'The Simpsons'.

"He can run like a gazelle when he wants to, can't he?" Sam observed.

"Indeed."

=====

Crashing through the treeline, Daniel was fairly thrumming with excitement as he skidded to a halt, the enormous Romanesque temple looming before him in all its glory. "Completely intact," he breathed in awe.

The temple was most definitely Roman in architecture; an octastyle, peripteral monstrosity, eight columns wide under the pediment and, as Daniel counted, eleven long on the perpendicular sides. The archaeologist ran a fascinated hand over the nearest column, finding himself overwhelmed once again with the realization that he was seeing and touching something that no one had on Earth since the fall of the Roman Empire. He reveled in the humbled wave of emotion that always accompanied an offworld discovery like this, then glanced past the columns to the interior of the temple. On his level, towering about seven metres above the lower level, was a podium, set up from the same stone as the columns of the temple, but covered in dark, textured layers of different stone slabs. Two staircases rose from the lower floor of the temple, reaching their summit at either end of the 30-or-so metre wide podium. On the lower level at the bottom of the stairs, closer to the far end of the temple, stood what appeared to be a small cella, measuring about 8x8x8 feet.

That was where he wanted to be! Eagerly, Daniel stepped in between two of the columns. "AHT! Oh no, you don't!"

Daniel jumped nearly a foot, whirling around to find Jack, Sam and Teal'c picking their way out of the trees to stop just a few feet away from him. "What?" he yelped.

Jack was shaking his head and eyeing the temple with a look that seemed to expect the thing to swallow his entire team whole. "Don't even think about it, Danny Boy," he clarified. "Not until we've checked this place out."

'Unbelievable!' Daniel rolled his eyes dramatically. "Jack, for God's sake! You heard what Sam said; there's not a single person on this planet, and by the looks of things around here, the temple hasn't been touched for centuries! Give me a break!" His gaze followed Teal'c, who, with a plainly disbelieving glance at him, vanished along one of the long sides of the structure, obviously on patrol.

"Better safe than sorry," Jack chirped. He nudged past Daniel, turned on his flashlight - even though, Daniel noted, it was an open temple and the sun illuminated everything--and entered the temple cautiously. Sam shrugged apologetically and followed her CO, while Daniel rolled his eyes again. "Better be careful Daniel--your eyes might stick like that!" Jack's voice echoed back at him.

'How did he...' Daniel shook his head. Forget it. The uncanny and understandably infuriating ability Jack had to predict Daniel's reactions to his mother hen/over Colonel-ing was a subject better left untouched. The archaeologist shook his head and followed his two military teammates, hiding a grin as he watched Jack hop down the last few stairs of one of the side staircases. Sam descended the opposite staircase with more dignity than her counterpart, and Daniel pulled out his camcorder and half-concentrated on not tripping down the stairs as he swivelled about, pausing to get the podium from all possible angles. Daniel ran a hand gently over its dark outer covering and found it rough and similar--but not quite--stone. "Tufa," he mumbled. "Interesting."

"What?" Jack called from a few yards away where he was aiming his weapon at who-knew-what.

Daniel sighed. "This--the podium--has slabs of tufa covering it," he called back, pitching his voice so Jack could hear it.

"So?"

'Why does he ask if he doesn't...never mind.' "So, most Roman structures that used tufa coverings don't have them anymore; archaeologists don't see much of what this kind of thing really looked like anymore."

"Question." Followed by Sam, Jack approached Daniel and crouched beside him. "What's tofu?"

"Tufa, sir," Sam corrected automatically, leaning closer to examine the covering herself. "It's thick calcium carbonate deposits that can form from the precipitation of dissolved calcium in bodies of water. We have pretty large formations of tufa on Earth, like...have you ever seen the towers at Mono Lake?"

Jack thought for a moment, face blank, then seemed to have an intellectual breakthrough. "The freaky, jagged things sticking up out of the water?"

Sam and Daniel traded exasperated glances at the Colonel's completely un-scientific description of the formations, but Sam nodded. "Yes sir. If tufa--or something that looks a lot like tufa--was used on this podium, and other parts of the temple, it likely indicates that there is--or was--a lake nearby. We'd have to get some tests run to see if it's really calcium carbonate."

"The UAV didn't pick up any bodies of water around here," Daniel reminded her.

"Then...maybe hot springs underground?" Sam suggested. "It's quite possible that the lake could have dried up centuries ago....this isn't exactly my field of study," she reminded her companions with a grin.

"Hmm. Well, that's interesting," Jack said, straightening. "but there's nothing here and I suppose there hasn't been anything here for a while. Let's go."

"'Go'?" Daniel echoed as he stood, gaping at Jack. "As in..."

"Back home. Terra firma...Teal'c," Jack shouted as their Jaffa teammate entered the temple from the opposite end. "Anything?"

Teal'c shook his head, then paused at the cella and peered inside. "DanielJackson," he called. "You may wish to examine this."

Daniel shot Jack a quick, smug smile before setting the camcorder to standby and hurrying across the temple to the small cella. "Whoa," he breathed, stopping beside Teal'c to look inside. On the floor, walls and ceiling of the cella were elaborate mosaics, the designs of which seemed to lead to the focal point of the cella--a statue of two identical men in battle poses that stood right to the ceiling. One of them held their left arm outstretched, and the other knelt with his back to his counterpart, shield raised as if he were fending off a blow. Daniel immediately turned the camcorder back on and ventured inside. "Incredible..."

"Practice caution, DanielJackson," Teal'c warned.

Daniel waved his free hand absently over his shoulder. "Mm-hmm." He circled the cella slowly, making sure to capture every section of the mosaics, camcorder in one hand and his flashlight in the other, wishing that the ceiling of the cella was open like the temple. 'Could use a bit of light, here,' he thought, growing a little disgruntled at how the light of his flashlight reflected off parts of the mosaic and obscured bits and pieces of it. As he neared the statue of the two warrior figures, Daniel noticed that the outstretched left hand of the standing figure had a jewel much like a ruby embedded in his palm. The little voice that Daniel had long ago realized was Jack's, telling him not to touch anything was smothered by the welcome, insatiable curiosity that overwhelmed him whenever he was in his element. Nothing else mattered but filming and decoding or translating as much of this place as he could, and Daniel laid down his camera and peered closer at the jewel. The fingers of his left hand seemed to lift of their own accord, and brushed carefully over the ruby.

Daniel jumped back as a thin red beam of light shot out from the jewel and widened, sweeping up and down Daniel's body as he'd seen the entryway of Thor's Hammer do to himself and his friends on Cimmeria just before Teal'c and Jack had been transported. The crimson light lingered on his face for a moment, then died just as it began to aggravate a nearly unnoticable twinge of a headache behind Daniel's eyes. Daniel released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and tentatively stooped to pick up his camera--an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that it might not be such a good idea to stay here, and the persistent little voice in the back of his head was screaming at him to get out. Even as he started to reach for his discarded camera, though, the entire cella erupted in a bright, blinding flash of light. Daniel found that he couldn't move, couldn't think; his limbs wouldn't obey his brain's strict order to RUN. 'Oh shit' was the only thought that came to the forefront of his mind before the intensity of the light completely immobilized him.

---

"Daniel!"

"Oh, shit!" Jack swore at the same time, chorusing Carter's concerned shout. "Not again..."

The light, blinding and blinking more rapidly than a strobe light on speed, filtered out of the small cella for no more than ten seconds. By the time the rest of SG-1 made it to the small entryway, it had died out completely and Daniel emerged. The archaeologist appeared shaky and disoriented, white-faced and stumbling with his eyes squeezed shut. Jack and Sam immediately lunged forward and grasped his elbows to steady him. Daniel started slightly at their abrupt grip, but slitted one eye open and relaxed when he saw who it was. "What the hell was that?!" Jack demanded, concern giving way to frustration and anger now that he knew Daniel had emerged relatively unscathed.

The subject of Jack's annoyance blinked rapidly and shook his head as though clearing it. "I have no idea. That light just..." Daniel waved a hand vaguely around his head, still squinting, "...appeared."

"You didn't touch anything?" Jack asked in disbelief, but was silenced by Sam's glare as she launched into her own version of mother hen mode.

"Are you okay? How do you feel?" She gave Daniel a cursory inspection; searching for bleeding, making him track her finger, probing his head for any kind of injury.

Daniel shook her off irritably. "Yeah. I mean, I think so. Pretty sure. Just a little...confused, I guess. It didn't hurt or anything. I just feel a little fuzzy, but...light. Weird," he finally said, settling on an appropriate adjective. "I feel weird."

"Well there's something new," Jack teased. "We're outta here anyway; there's nothing else here and we've got to get you checked out, now. Let's book."

"Wait; my stuff is in there!" Daniel protested, digging his heels as best he could into the stone floor as his two friends steered him back toward the staircases. Jack snorted.

"Forget it, Daniel--no way in hell I'm sending anyone else in there. That stuff is left for the little temple bugs and camera-eaters."

"Sir?" Sam's voice was hesitant, and Jack glance at her. "Um...where's Teal'c?" she asked.

"I am here."

"Oh, for--Teal'c, what did I just say?"

The Jaffa was emerging from the cella bearing Daniel's pack, camera and flashlight, and cocked a questioning eyebrow at Jack at the colonel's frustrated tone. "You had not spoken until I had already retrieved DanielJackson's belongings, O'Neill," he said logically.

Jack groaned and washed a hand over his face in exasperation while Daniel grinned. "Thank you, Teal'c."

"You are most welcome, DanielJackson."

"Mutineers," Jack grumbled. "Do I have any authority here anymore?"

"Not in the important matters," Daniel quipped. "That'd be too dangerous." He squawked slightly when Jack cuffed him lightly on the side of the head.

"Amusing, Daniel. Now move it before I hurt you."

It was a familiar sight to any SGC personnel, whether they be military or civilian; SG-1 seated on various beds throughout the base infirmary, seemingly randomly placed but actually equidistant from their resident trouble magnet, who was, at the moment, in the middle of his standard--and not so standard, a result of his teammates' blabbing to the base's CMO, Doctor Janet Fraiser, about his unusual run-in on the planet--check-up. The only teammate of Daniel's who wasn't maintaining the pretense of being solely concerned with his own affairs was Jack O'Neill, and he was avoiding the nurses at all cost, leaning casually against the bed directly beside Daniel's, facing the younger man over Fraiser's shoulder. What would she find this time? Any alien virus, alien possession, alien...hell, alien anything. If anyone on the base was going to pick something up from another planet, it would be Daniel. It was only a matter of time before Fraiser gave the verdict and--

"Okay Doctor Jackson, you're all clear. Go ahead."

Blinking rapidly to clear the spots Doctor Fraiser's penlight had left in front of his eyes, Daniel peeled his glare off Jack and turned to the CMO with a surprised, delighted grin. "Really?"

"Really?" Jack asked at the same time, equally as surprised, straightening up and stepping forward the two steps to push his way into Daniel's space for an inspection of his own. "No unnatural tumors or growths, extra passengers...double vision?"

"You sound disappointed," Daniel observed wryly, squeezing past Jack and reaching for the shirt that was draped over the footrail of the bed. "I'm fine; I told you I'm fine, and now it's confirmed. Now if you'll excuse me, everyone, the shower is calling my name..."

"Doc?" Jack prompted, blocking Daniel's escape.

Fraiser shrugged, pocketing the penlight and studying Daniel closely. "He really is fine, sir. A little headache that--"

"That feels like I've been out in the sun too long," Daniel chorused, nodding and smiling--rather smugly--in Jack's direction.

"...And a little disorientation; both of the symptoms that could be brought on by the intensity and flashing of that light you described. All of Doctor Jackson's tests came back clear..." she shrugged again. "He's free to go. I have no..what's the word..."

"Logical?" Carter suggested brightly from across the room.

Janet smiled. "That's it. Thank you, Sam. I have no logical reason to keep him here."

"Yes," Daniel cheered quietly, waving Jack aside with grandiose exaggeration. He sauntered smugly over to the exit, pulling up short for a brief moment when he caught sight of something strange--at the other end of the infirmary, a figure stood leaning against the bed, arms wrapped around its torso, peering at Daniel through round glass lenses. Daniel blinked and shook his head, but when he opened his eyes the person was gone. 'Tired,' he told himself. 'Tired and disoriented from that light.' He quickly kept going, head down. He didn't notice Jack as the colonel made to follow him, scowling silently, but Doctor Fraiser laid a hand on his arm, stilling his progress.

"Ah--Colonel, I don't believe you've had your post-mission physical yet."

Jack grimaced. "Doc, come on; there's something screwy here, I know it. There's no way Daniel can touch something and not have some weird-ass effects from it. Don't we know from experience that someone should keep an eye on him?"

"Colonel." Fraiser, despite her diminuitive five feet, two inches, was stronger--and a hell of a lot more intimidating--than she looked, and pushed Jack to sit on the bed just vacated by Daniel. "Leave the man to shower on his own--he won't be long, and then you can mother him all you like."

"I don't mother him!" Jack protested indignantly. "He's a grown man, for cryin' out loud!"

"Hmm." Sam exchanged a knowing glance with Fraiser, and Teal'c waited a beat before inputting his driest "Indeed."

But in all honesty, who could blame O'Neill for being a little more concerned than seemed natural--or appropriate? Janet observed the Colonel's frequent unconscious glances toward the door Daniel had left by and suppressed a sigh. After all, it had only been a little over three weeks since Daniel had been mistakenly diagnosed with hebephrenic-schizophrenia. The archaeologist had been committed to the Mental Health ward at the Air Force Academy hospital, and if it hadn't been for an unfortunate first-hand encounter with the culprits--Goa'uld killing creatures manufactured by Machello--by herself, Colonel O'Neill, Teal'c and Major Carter, Daniel could still be there, wasting away in a padded cell, perfectly sane and only he knowing the truth. His teammates had been, perhaps not so subtly, overprotective of him since he'd been released, and it was still a little bit of volatile territory where Daniel's health was concerned. No one wanted to come right out and confront Daniel with their concerns for him, but it was impossible to ignore them.

Fraiser physically turned Colonel O'Neill's gaze toward her for the third time in as many minutes with a loud, pointed sigh and her patented patient-but-losing-it Glare of Death. They could worry about Daniel on their own time; in the meantime, she had her own job to do.

=====

Humming softly to himself, the sound drowned out by the echoing thunder of the water running in the shower cubicle he'd chosen, Daniel stripped off his BDUs and left them in a pile by his locker, snagged a towel and wrapped it loosely around his waist before hauling down his boxers and leaving them with the clothes. He wasn't necessarily shy about his own nudity, but would rather not be caught, quite literally, with his pants down if any of the more pestering of the Marines decided to come in for a quick shower. Daniel sighed blissfully as he stepped under the spray and tossed the towel in the general direction of his locker, then turned and let the hot water cascade over his shoulders, down his back and over his torso. He tilted his head back, soaking his hair and allowing the constant pressure to massage the residual headache and disorientation from his mind.

"Better?"

The voice was muffled from the water pouring into his ears, but Daniel turned, a slight smile on his face and hiding the sharp little stab of annoyance that swelled inside him, assuming Jack was back into full mother hen mode. "Yeah."

"Good! That light really screwed with our head, didn't it?"

"'Our'?" Daniel scoffed fondly. "Jack, you didn't even go near--AAH!!" Daniel yelped in surprise as he opened his eyes, his gaze landing on his visitor. Just outside the cubicle, wearing robes oddly reminiscent of the robes he'd worn on Abydos, stood a young girl of about sixteen, a half-smile on her face. Coming unprofessionally close to completely freaking out, Daniel groped blindly for something--anything to cover himself as the water continued running. "W-wha-wh-what are you doing in here?!" he stammered, voice rising in his embarrassment and echoing throughout the tiled shower stalls. "Who are you?! W--"

"Take it easy!" the girl said loudly, stepping aside to allow Daniel a wide berth as the archaeologist edged past her, out of the cubicle, and found with great relief a towel draped over the cubicle next to him. With a bleat of embarrassed relief, Daniel completely tied it off around his waist "It's not like it's something I've never seen before."

Daniel stared, dripping, mouth working soundlessly while the girl carefully fiddled her robes out of the way to sit on one of the benches arranged around the room. "I--you...I d-don't need to know that!" he cried, about three octaves higher than normal.

The girl just grinned a strangely familiar grin at him, blue eyes twinkling mischievously. "Relax, would you?" she asked serenely. "Despite what you think, I'm not some underage pervert. What would Jack think if he came in here and heard us absolutely losing it--what would any Marines think?"

"'Us'?!" Daniel shook his head vigourously and breathed deeply, the words 'losing it' forcing his mind to do a double-take and calm down. "Who are you?" he demanded flatly, injecting a calm he didn't feel into his voice.

"Come on. You're telling me you don't recognize yourself?" the girl teased.

"My...myself," Daniel echoed dumbly.

"Mm-hmm. You are Daniel Jackson. I'm Daniel Jackson--though," she chuckled, "you should probably call me 'Danielle', or something, I guess, if that's not too clich�." 'Danielle' turned that beaming, eerily familiar smile up at Daniel and shrugged.

Daniel sat down on a bench opposite his living hallucination. Hard. "What...I don't believe this. Does Jack seriously think he can pull this off?" He snarled softly and stood again, pacing around restlessly and muttering to himself. "Not even three weeks out of the woods and he thinks he can just try and mess with my head again? I gave him the benefit of the doubt; thought he had a bit more tact than that..." He glanced around, expecting his friend to jump out at him and yell 'Gotcha!' "Jack!" he snapped with false humour. "Good one! I can't account for your taste in jokes, but--"

"This isn't a joke, Daniel," Danielle said quietly. "Don't try to pin this on Jack. You know that after a scare like that one with Machello's little bugs, Jack wouldn't do anything to you like that, no matter how far 'out of the woods' you are. As much as you want it not to be, this is real."

Daniel returned his attention to the blonde teenager, a disbelieving smirk still on his face. "So you're me?" he said with mock thoughtfulness. "I'm awfully feminine."

"Nnnnno. No. See, the cella? We saw the walls; the mosaics--it did this. If we want to deal with semantics, get every little detail about what happened, just figure out the mosaics; we'll get our answer."

"Rrrrriiiiggghhhht," Daniel drawled. He pointed to the locker room door. "D'you think you can come back later? I'd really like to get dressed now."

Danielle sighed. "It's true. Tell me something, Daniel. How do I--you--feel? Right now--this very minute."

"A bit irked. Annoyed at whoever's pulling this off--"

"Afraid? Maybe...believing it; even a little?"

"Afraid?" Daniel snickered but paused briefly, assessing his emotions, and was surprised that, no, he wasn't afraid of this at all. "Why would I be afraid? And as far as believing it..." Daniel shook his head, exuding bravado. "Some weird stuff has happened the past few years, but myself--a female 'myself'--hasn't been one of them. What; are you going to tell me you're from an alternate reality, one where I'm a girl? One where I went wild as a teenager and decided to have a sex change?"

"Am I really that hard-headed?" Danielle pondered aloud. "I've always thought I was a bit more open-minded than this."

Daniel laughed harshly, confidently sauntering over to his locker--but studiously keeping a sharp eye on the delusional intruder--to grab a fresh set of BDUs. "After the past few weeks, I think it'll be a while before I start to believe what I see at first blush," he announced. "Now..." he waved impatiently at the door. "Will you go so I can get dressed? I'd rather not die of a chill while I'm talking to 'myself'."

"Okay, fine," Danielle said, tossing up her hands in defeat. "I'll be in our office when you decide you want to jump back into this little party called reality." She walked over to the door and waited, unmoving, simply staring at the closed passageway.

"What are you waiting for?" Daniel asked, pulling a black t-shirt on over his head but leaving the towel in place until he was left to his privacy.

"I can open the door on my own but I don't think it would look very natural to the techs in the surveillance room if the locker room door just opened by itself, would it?"

"Oh, so I'm the only one lucky enough to be dragged into this delusion?" Daniel surmised. He gave a low whistle. "Lucky me."

"Not a problem," Danielle said absently. "I can definitely make myself seen if I want to." Any response Daniel was going to make was abruptly cut off as the door swung open, and she flashed him a wolfish grin as she slipped past Jack, who poked his head in the open door. "See you later!" she chirped.

"Whatever," Daniel muttered.

"Hey, you say something?" Jack meandered over to his own locker, tugging shower supplies off the shelves and pulling off his soiled BDUs for the laundry.

Daniel jerked his head around, not even realizing he'd spoken his dismissal aloud. "Uh, no. Just...wondering where my boots are--oh, there they are." He was babbling, he knew that, but Daniel was surprised at how nonchalant, calm he sounded. Upon closer inspection, he noted with great relief that the uncomfortable feeling, the feeling like everyone's eyes were on him all the time, was gone for the first time in weeks. He felt...fine. Amazed, Daniel found his reflection in the mirror, all open serenity and undisturbed.

"Hmm." Jack's unconcerned murmur informed Daniel that the other man wasn't even really listening, too wrapped up in getting ready for his own rejuvenating shower.

"How--how was your physical?" Daniel asked, trying to make smalltalk as he pulled a pair of blue BDU pants on and up over his hips.

Jack gave him a brief glance over his shoulder and snorted. "Fine, fine. Another day, another needle to the ass." Daniel chuckled and didn't notice Jack's approving glance; he had to admit, it felt good to laugh. He was painfully aware he hadn't had any great impulse to indulge himself in the simple pleasures, like simply mindlessly bantering with Jack, lately.

"So, you doing anything tonight?" Jack asked, sounding in a much better mood all of a sudden.

Daniel turned awkwardly, half bent over, tying his right boot. "Um, no, I don't think so...I was hoping to get a look at whatever I managed to film in the cella on the planet today..."

"Ah, that can wait, Danny Boy!" Jack decided. "Teal'c's bringing over Armageddon and The Waterboy; planning on ordering pizza...movies, pizza, beer--or Indonesian Spirit Wine, or whatever the hell you're drinking these days..."

"'Indonesian Spirit Wine'?" Daniel echoed, a small smile breaking free. "Where do you come up with this stuff?"

"You'll have to ask my speech writer. So are you in or not? Around seven...I'll give you a lift if you 'forget'." Jack was fairly adamant, and Daniel knew that if he turned down the invitation he'd likely get an irked Colonel at his office door at 6:30, ready to drag him out to watch the movies.

"Armageddon and The Waterboy? Sort of an odd mix..." Daniel shrugged slightly. "Sure, I think I can fit you guys in. My car's just about empty, so I'll need the ride."

"Can do." Jack slipped into the first shower cubicle and out of sight. "See you then!"

Daniel nodded even though his friend couldn't see him and slipped out of the locker room as the water started running and Jack broke out into his own rendition of 'Smoke on the Water'. By the time he hit the elevator button for level 18, his run-in with 'himself' in the locker room was already the last thing on his mind.

=====

Part 2
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