Title: BrigaDOH!

Email: [email protected], Back evil leprechauns! With feedback, we can fight them!

Author's Notes: Full disclaimer in Part 1. In Part 3, Jack gets a kick in the head and realizes what all y'all figgered out back in part 1.

Part 4/6

Hours later---how many he didn't know, he was even slowly getting used to not caring----Jack sank on to the nearest bench, leaning heavily against a cottage wall. He and Colin had finally wrangled Danann, the last hold out among the young children, into her bed with a real chance she'd actually stay there this time. He hoped.

Surveying the plaza, he smiled with contentment. A small knot of villagers (Mostly men, Jack's subconscious noted briefly before he smacked down. Stubborn to the end, it had risen from the dust to remark that at least she'd finally had Sid surgically removed) clustered around Sam, listening with rapt attention as she gave her Stargate for Dummies lecture.

He recognized the hand gestures, having been on the receiving end of it more times than were strictly necessary. He'd gotten into the habit of asking some stupid question to provoke it every few months or so. The glow of the firelight couldn't compete with the flush of excitement on her cheeks. After seven years, her recitation of what, to her, were the simplest of facts had lost none of its sense of wonder.

Jack's musings were interrupted by the arrival of a rather desperate-looking Teal'c.

"You must help me, O'Neill," he begged, dropping on the bench beside him.

"Trouble?" Jack asked, sitting up straight.

"Indeed," Teal'c gasped. "Oscar is relentless. We have been training for hours, yet he does not grow weary."

"I don't see him . . ." Jack said, looking around the fire.

"He is outside the wall of the village. He believes that I have hidden myself in the woods as part of an exercise in tracking."

"He's good at it," Jack gestured across the plaza. Oscar was headed toward them at a jog. Teal'c groaned.

"Master Teal'c!" Oscar knelt in front of the bench. "I did not complete your task quickly enough. I am sorry."

"Oscar, Master Teal'c needs a break. He's 104, you know." Jack said with a grin. "How ‘bout you grab us a couple of mugs of whatever's in the barrel, ok?"

"But, sir! A Jaffa laoch does not consume alcohol!" Oscar looked scandalized.

"Of course. You've learned well, young Oscar," Jack said with mock seriousness, " But today is special . . . today there are no Jaffa. Only Irish. And today, the Irish most definitely drink alcohol."

Oscar looked to Teal'c for confirmation. He nodded, and Oscar scampered off.

"Good kid," Jack remarked.

"He is a fine young man," Teal'c agreed.

"Any reason he's stapled himself to you?"

"Staples are not involved. He has apprenticed himself to me, O'Neill." Teal'c closed his eyes wearily, adding after a long pause, "He does so to honor Master Bra'tac."

"Bra'tac?" Jack asked, an uneasy feeling settling over him.

"He fought beside us in the final battle against the Goa'uld. He fell trying to save the lives of Oscar and his father."

"Teal'c . . ." Jack had no idea how to go on.

"I can think of no better death for my friend, O'Neill. And Oscar will be an apprentice worthy of the ways in which he trained me." Teal'c smiled gravely, "To regret his death would be to dishonor him."

"Ok," Jack said quietly. He spotted Oscar making his way through the crowd, two mugs held carefully over his head, "So we'll drink to him."

"Indeed," Teal'c said, clinking his mug with Jack's. "To Master Bra'tac."

Jack's eyes began to tear up from the fumes before his mug was halfway to his lips. He watched in awe as Teal'c drained his in one gulp without blinking.

"Your ancestors were a wise people, O'Neill," he said rising swiftly from the bench as if newly invigorated. "Come, Oscar, you must learn stories of the Jaffa as part of your training." He placed a hand on the boy's shoulder and led him closer to the fire.

Jack turned his attention back to where he expected to find Carter. To his disappointment, she was nowhere in sight. His eyes moved around the square alighting on Daniel, who was talking animatedly to Bridget, oblivious to the adoring look on her face. Smiling to himself, Jack closed his eyes tried to remember the last time he'd felt so content. Seeing his little family happy and active was doing wonders for his own state of mind.

"How do you like our version of whiskey, O'Neill?" Sid asked.

Jack jumped. He hadn't even sensed the man sitting down only inches away from him.

"Smooth," he said, deliberately taking a huge swig and immediately regretting it.

"Damned sight better than that nasty green beer," Sid laughed.

"Sure," Jack replied shortly, making no overtures to continue the conversation.

"You haven't asked me anything," Sid said after a while.

"Looks like your dance card's been full anyway," Jack downed another slug. It wasn't so bad once most of your windpipe had been burned away.

"Oh yes! I had to sic Bridget on Daniel to get him off my back."

"You bastard!" Jack smiled reluctantly, "And what did Young Jackson want to know?"

"Culture. Language. How things got to be so . . . tacky around here."

"Tacky?"

Sid held up a patch of embroidery on his robe, "Shamrocks, green beer. The whole faux-Irish thing."

"Ah . . ." Jack nodded. After a moment, he looked worried, "Oh, god. It's not like this all the time, is it?"

Sid threw his head back and laughed, "No, no . . . Other than the statue . . ."

"My statue is not tacky!" Jack retorted. He thought a minute, "Well . . . the green's a bit much. What's the story with that anyway?"

"Lost a bet," Sid said, wincing.

"You? You! You gave Carter the . . ." Jack cupped his hands in front of his chest.

"No!" Sid replied hastily. "Sculpture only! The pedestal's actually a serious effort to record the story . . ."

"Ah . . . boobs as a narrative device," Jack tipped his mug back, looking surprised to find it empty.

"We blame Daniel for those. Him and his Venus figurines. People have to be ready before you spring fertility goddesses on them."

"And Sam was . . . yeah. Gotcha." Jack scanned the crowd, hoping to find someone to bring him another drink. "Colin! Another?" He shook his empty mug, relieved when the young man nodded.

"Yeah." Sid continued after a moment. "Rebuilding a cultural identity's a bitch. Day to day around here, it's mostly kind of a Celtic jumble, but they've talked themselves out of the leprechauns and other Americanisms. Other days, it feels like Langarra all over again."

"Langarra?" Jack frowned with the effort of bringing up the memory. "Oh! Kelowna . . . Is there anything you don't know about us?"

"Factually? Not really." Sid admitted. "I don't think I know much about you, though, if it makes you feel any better."

"Man of mystery, that's me," Jack muttered. "Ah, Colin! Good man!" He gratefully accepted the mug.

"You like it?" Colin looked pleased. "I distilled it myself. Sid taught me!"

"Did he now?" Jack raised his eyebrows and Sid had the decency to look ashamed. "Well, it's excellent. Thank you."

Colin bowed slightly and ran back to his friends, excitedly chattering over Jack's seal of approval.

"You really don't want to know anything?" Sid asked, watching Jack carefully.

"Nope. I know what I need to know." Jack couldn't suppress a proud smile. "We win. The rest? I like surprises."

Sid snorted, "Well, Sam had enough questions for both of you."

"Bet she did," Jack said into his mug on his way to another large gulp.

"Wanna know what she asked?" He asked innocently, his eyes on his drink.

"Time bubbles. Relativity. Why you can't get here from there. Bunch of stuff you can't answer, I bet," Jack was annoyed by the smug satisfaction in his own voice.

"You got it!" Sid laughed, to his surprise. "But damn! She makes you wish you could, doesn't she?"

"Yes she does," Jack agreed quietly.

"Jack, we really are going to be friends one day,"

"Oh, yeah. I can see that," Jack rolled his eyes.

"And in honor of that friendship," Sid continued, ignoring him, "I'm gonna give you one freebie. I'll tell you the one thing you want to ask me worse than anything else."

"Oh really? Tell me, what is that I wanna know?"

"I'm not in love with her," he said simply, looking Jack in the eye.

"Sid, buddy. A blatant lie? This is not the beginning of a beautiful friendship . . ."

"Ok, ok," Sid conceded, "Is it even possible not to be in love with her?" Jack made no response as he stared into his mug. "Uh . . . not really the right guy to ask, I guess," he finished lamely.

"Yeah, this has been swell, Sid. We should do this again sometime," Jack slammed his empty mug down on the bench, pushing himself up off the bench.

"Grace will be the first Tau'ri child to go through the Stargate."

"Grace? Sam's kid. Hot damn! " He grinned in spite of himself.

"And yours."

Jack froze, his back to Sid, "What?"

"Ask Sam."

"You told her that?" He turned back toward the bench.

"She asked," Sid shrugged.

Jack drew a deep breath, trying to calm the sudden thudding in his chest, "I assume you placed her on a suicide watch after delivering the news?"

"Drop the dumb act, Jack. She's waiting for you."

"Where?" He asked, a little too quickly.

"I left her at the gate to the village."

"And she said she was waiting for me?" Jack sounded skeptical.

"No, actually, she said she wanted to be alone," Sid said as if dealing with an unusually slow child.

"Sid!?" Jack made an impatient motion with his fist.

"She doesn't know she's waiting for you." Sid drained his mug.

"But the Great and Powerful Dreidl knows?" He sneered.

"No, no super-draoi powers. Just the instinct of guy who's gotten laid in the last decade." Sid raised his mug. "Refill time."

"Right," Jack stood for a moment and watched him wander away.

"Sir?" Colin was standing a few yards away, eyeing him curiously. "Are you well?"

"Oh yeah." Jack broke into a wide smile as he strode across the plaza. He stopped halfway and retraced his steps back to Colin, snatching the still-full mug from his hand. "You're not using this, right?" He drained it in one go, pressing the empty mug back into his hand a moment later, "Thanks, kid."


Continue on to Part 5, now fortified with SMUT