Fic: C'est la Vie
Dec. 17th, 2003 07:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
galaxysoupFANDOM: Stargate SG-1
RATING: PG-13
CAEGORY: Humor
SUMMARY: A day in the life.
SPOILERS: None. Vague reference to any episode Sam's love life is massacred, which sadly is way too many to name.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The book Teal'c steals from Daniel really does exist - it's by Arthur C. Lehmann and while I've never read it and have no idea if it's any good, it was one of the first things to pop up when I ran a search on Amazon so it won by default. Also, all the witchcraft stuff I just plain made up. Don't try this at home, kids! Oh, and if I got any of the language stuff wrong, I apologize. Much as I might wish I had Daniel's brain sometimes, I really don't.
C'EST LA VIE
Daniel ran.
Heart pumping, chest heaving, legs burning, his feet pounded the earth. Up ahead, he saw Captain Britton shove aside a tree branch as he crashed through the underbrush. Daniel chanced a look back. They were still being followed.
He rounded an outcropping and came within sight of the gate. Putting on a burst of speed he hadn't realized he was capable of and knew he'd pay for later, Daniel sprinted to the DHD and slapped his hand down on the symbols. He barely heard the arrival of Lieutenant Abele and Sergeant Owens over his own harsh panting.
The wormhole gushed out and Captain Britton waved the GDO to show he'd sent the code. Daniel turned and ran through the gate. He felt the cool air of the mountain on his face and heard the clang of the ramp under his feet and collapsed on his hands and knees.
Home. Beautiful, sweet, lovely, safe home. There wasn't anywhere like it.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"So, I hear you guys had a little excitement today," Jack said, once again displaying his absolute mastery of understating the obvious. Daniel put down the artifact he'd been studying and folded his hands neatly on his desk.
"You know that scene in the first Jurassic Park movie where they're in the Jeep and they're being chased by the tyrannosaur? And Jeff Goldblum's character keeps yelling 'Must go faster'?"
Jack nodded cautiously.
"Well, I just wish we'd had a Jeep."
Jack's jaw dropped. "You were chased by a T Rex?" He grinned. "No way! That is so cool!"
Daniel gave him a sour look. "You were one of those obnoxious children who knew all the names of the dinosaurs before you could walk, weren't you?"
Jack grinned unrepentantly, swiped the artifact, Daniel's empty coffee mug, and his paperweight from the table, and started juggling. Daniel cringed.
"I was a boy child, Daniel. That's what all boy children do. Not that you'd know."
Daniel leaned forward and plucked his authentic Viking drinking horn out of the air with the ease of long practice. "I had different priorities," he said primly. "While you were reciting dinosaurs I was learning the names of the pharaohs in dynastic order in the original heiroglyphs."
Jack caught the paperweight and the artifact and set them back down on the table. "You know how some people say their middle name is 'danger'? Yours is 'boring'." He scowled as Daniel busied himself with the coffee maker. "And I can't believe you drink your coffee out of that thing."
Daniel smiled. "A mug's a mug." He took a sip to prove his point. Jack's scowl deepened and Daniel's smile grew. He would tell Jack over his dead body that the drinking horn was just a replica. It was way too much fun to watch Jack shudder as he imagined the centuries of ingrained dust Daniel was imbibing.
There was a discreet knock at the door.
"Come in, Teal'c," Daniel called.
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c acknowledged.
Jack raised his eyebrows. "How did you know it was him?"
Daniel gave Jack a pointed look. "He knocks."
Jack dismissed that as an unproductive line of conversation and executed a neat mental u-turn. "What is your middle name, anyway?"
Daniel smiled and picked up his pen. "That's for me to know and you to never find out."
Jack straightened immediately. "You know you can't say things like that to me." He elbowed Daniel out of the way and began clicking through the base files on Daniel's computer, frowning when he uncovered Daniel's personnel file. "Daniel Balsturig Jackson? It sounds kind of funny, but it's not that bad." He looked disappointed.
From the bookcase, Teal'c said "Daniel Jackson, does that not mean - "
Daniel looked up sharply.
" - I believe Major Carter requires my assistance," Teal'c continued smoothly. "Good day." He bowed his head and left.
Jack gave Daniel a suspicious look. "What does it mean?"
"Nothing." Daniel pushed Jack out of the way and went back to his translation. "My mom's idea of a joke."
"It's not very funny."
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Tell me about it."
Jack straightened abruptly. "That's okay. You don't want to tell me. I understand." He gave Daniel a cheery smile. "I'll just have to find out for myself."
Daniel watched him leave, then lunged for the phone.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Nyan hung up and stood for a moment staring at the phone in perplexity. "Robert?"
"What?" Rothman asked, not bothering to look up from his translation.
"That was Daniel. He says we're not allowed to tell Colonel O'Neill what 'balsturig' means."
"Okay."
Nyan frowned. "Don't you want to know why?"
"No," Robert said emphatically.
Nyan thought about that for a moment.
"Probably wise."
* * * * * * * * * * *
Jack ran Teal'c to ground in his quarters. "Teal'c, you decent?" he yelled, and opened the door without waiting for an answer.
Carter jumped guiltily and slammed the book she'd been reading shut. Teal'c reached over and slapped off the television.
Jack grinned wolfishly. "Hi, kids. Whatcha doing?"
Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "It is no business of yours, O'Neill. And we have previously discussed the matter of knocking before one enters, have we not?"
Jack eyed Carter, who was getting progressively redder as the conversation went on. "Carter?"
She jumped. "Nothing! We're not doing anything!"
Jack gave her an incredulous look. "How did you ever get away with anything when you were a kid, Carter?" he asked rhetorically, then shook himself and returned to his original mission. He'd find out what they were up to eventually. "Teal'c, what does Balsturig mean?"
Teal'c stared at him. Jack stared back. Teal'c didn't blink, and after a moment Jack scowled and looked away. Teal'c was hell at the poker table. The one time SG-3 had ever invited him to play he'd cleaned them all out in under half an hour.
"It sounds sort of Germanic, sir," Carter said, her face slowly regaining its normal hue. "Beyond that I have no idea."
"All right." Jack watched them another moment. "Behave yourselves, kids. Don't do anything I would do." He smiled evilly at Carter, hoping she'd crack, but she was resolutely not looking in his direction.
Oh, well, Jack thought as he shut the door. It was only a matter of time. Next stop, the archaeology/linguistics lab.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"You're telling me you've never heard of it?" Jack asked in disbelief.
Nyan edged around until the lab table was firmly between himself and the colonel and shook his head from the relative safety of the humanoid remains collection. "No, I'm sorry. It could be a strictly Earth language, though, in which case it's not surprising I wouldn't recognize it."
Jack leaned across the table. "It doesn't even sound familiar?"
Nyan leaned back and contemplated arming himself with a femur. "No, sorry."
"Huh." Jack frowned and turned to Robert. "How 'bout you, Rothman?"
Robert tapped his chin thoughtfully with his pencil. "If your initial presumption of Slavic or Germanic origins is correct, it's likely that it's either a traditional name of a hereditary type or perhaps has ties with any number of mythological tales or examples of oral history. Most names - taking into account, again, the presumption that it's European in origin - have their origins in the Latin or the Bible, calling on Biblical characters or Latin root words to confer upon the recipient of the name a measure of strength or virility, or some other characteristic which the ancestors believed had some importance or would confer a favorable advantage onto its recipient. It is always possible, however, that it came not from such traditional venues but from somewhere a little more eclectic, like an ancient clan name or region or... I'm sorry, what was the question again?"
Jack gave Robert a glazed look. "I'm sure I knew when I asked, but that incredibly unhelpful - and yet unending - stream of utterly useless information has completely wiped it from my brain." He clapped his hands over his mouth, looking horrified. "Oh, my god, I'm starting to sound like you! You're sucking out my brain and replacing it with boring stuff!" He got to his feet and backed toward the door, casting deeply suspicious looks in Rothman's direction until he made it to the relative safety of the hallway.
Nyan stood up from where he'd been crouched behind the skull box and stared at Robert.
"I want to be like you when I grow up," he said in awe.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Daniel's office door banged open and Jack marched in. "Rothman just traumatized me," he complained, and collapsed dramatically on the floor.
Daniel made sympathetic noises and tossed Jack a bag of M&Ms from his stash. "I'm sorry. I did tell you it wouldn't do any good."
Jack upended the bag and emptied half of it in one go. "It was awful. He kept using really long words and convoluted sentence structures." He gave Daniel a baleful look. "You know how much I hate convoluted sentence structures."
"I know," Daniel said, watching the rest of the M&Ms disappear with a rapidity that would have put Janet to shame.
"And run-on sentences!" Jack continued heatedly. "I mean, there are run-on sentences and then there are run-on novels. On a scale of one to run-on this thing was fricking War and Peace."
He brightened suddenly.
"Hey, Daniel?"
"What?"
"Why would Teal'c be watching that goth chick movie Cassie has?"
Daniel blinked. "He's Teal'c."
Sadly, that was a very good explanation. Jack switched tracks and put on his most pathetic expression. "At least tell me what language it's in."
Daniel sighed. "Fine. It's Dutch. Don't bother looking it up - it's a family thing."
"Then how did Teal'c know it?" Jack pointed put reasonably.
Daniel raised his eyebrows.
"Right. Never mind."
Daniel sidled up to Teal'c's door and knocked discreetly. The chatter from within stopped abruptly, and there was a brief scrambling noise.
"Enter," Teal'c called.
Daniel eased the door open and slipped inside, eyeing the layout of the room with interest. Teal'c's candles had been arranged in an elaborate pentagram pattern centering on Sam, who was seated cross-legged on the floor trying her best not to look like she had been caught doing something naughty. Teal'c was just finishing stuffing something under the bed.
"Hello," Daniel said, drawing the word out in inquiry. Sam's chin raised defiantly. "Teal'c, any particular reason you borrowed 'The Craft' from Cassie and stole 'Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion: An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural' out of my office earlier today? 'Cos I have to say it's starting to look a little suspicious."
"The reasons are simple," Teal'c said.
"Teal'c, you promised!" Sam exclaimed, looking hurt.
"Daniel Jackson will not betray your secret," Teal'c soothed. "If he does I will reveal to Colonel O'Neill the translation of his middle name. He may be of some help."
Daniel frowned. Sam crossed her arms, thinking it over. "Okay." She fired a challenging look in Daniel's direction. "But you have to promise not to laugh."
"I promise."
"Swear on your coffee maker?"
"I swear."
"Okay." She shot Teal'c a pleading look. "Well, I was venting at Janet about how every guy I try to date ends up dead, and Teal'c overheard and said he would try and help."
Daniel blinked. "So this is..."
Sam flushed and looked at the ground. "An exorcism," she said miserably.
"Oh," Daniel said. Sam gave him a sideways glance. His mouth twitched. Sam made a growling noise deep in her throat and Daniel hastily ducked his head, taking several deep breaths. When he looked up, his face was straight.
"Sam, maybe you should just stop dating aliens," he said, his voice wobbling suspiciously on the last word. Sam's eyes narrowed.
"'Balsturig' is a Dutch word," Teal'c said quickly. "It means 'stubborn'."
Sam's jaw dropped. "Stubborn?" She said faintly. "Your middle name is... Stubborn?"
"No," Daniel said, crossing his arms and scowling. "My middle name is Balsturig."
Sam covered her mouth with one hand. "Daniel Stubborn Jackson." She made a choking noise. "Your name is Daniel Stubborn Jackson."
Daniel glowered at her. "I didn't laugh at you," he said pointedly.
Sam's face contorted in a grimace worthy of an Unas, and when she took her hand away her face was straight even if she couldn't look Daniel in the eye.
"Okay. You're right. No laughing." Her mouth twitched. "...Stubborn."
"Witch," Daniel shot back, sounding like he'd just as soon exchange the word for something similar in sound but different in meaning.
"Stubborn."
"Witch."
Teal'c rolled his eyes and cleared his throat pointedly. Sam and Daniel subsided immediately, looking sheepish. Teal'c pulled the supplies he'd stashed out from under his bed, lining them up neatly on the cement floor.
"Okay," Daniel said with a last amused look at Sam. "There was something sort of like this I saw them use on Abydos once..."
Jack stole noiselessly up to Teal'c's door and pressed his ear against the thick metal, scowling in irritation as he failed to distinguish words from the drone of voices within. He took a deep breath, waited for a pause in the conversation, and threw the door open.
There was a thud and a suspiciously Daniel-like "Ow!" as the door stopped short. Jack leaned his head around the opening and winced apologetically at Daniel, who was seated on the ground rubbing his back.
"Jack, haven't we talked about the whole knocking thing?"
"Yeah, but..." his voice trailed off as he took in the condition of the rest of the room. "What the hell are you guys up to?"
Carter turned red and looked at the floor. Teal'c just stared at him.
"Daniel?"
Daniel gave him a pissy look. "If you must know, we're trying to put a hex on Anubis."
Jack's jaw dropped. "A hex?"
"A hex. You know, a curse."
"I know what a hex is." He gave Carter a puzzled look. "I'm just confused as to why you're bothering." Mostly he was confused as to why his determinedly scientific 2IC would be participating. He wouldn't put hexes past Daniel and Teal'c for a moment.
Her eyes met his for an instant, then returned to the cement floor. "It seemed like a good idea," she said defensively.
"So if you're putting a hex on Anubis, why is Carter sitting in the penta-thingy?"
"She had to sit somewhere," Daniel said, his eyes wide and innocent.
Jack frowned. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"Oh, yes." Daniel smiled beatifically. "Sam is a surprisingly good witch, actually."
Teal'c made a choking noise. They all turned and stared at him. He raised one eyebrow, his face impassive. Jack shook himself and turned back to pentagram at hand. "She is?"
Carter smiled brightly, finally meeting his eyes. "I'm about as good at being a witch as Daniel is at being stubborn, sir." Was it just him or was there a slightly malicious glint in her eyes?
Teal'c made another choking noise.
"Right," Jack said intelligently. "Well, you guys just don't... blow anything up, or... turn into toads or anything."
Daniel gave him a sunny smile. "Okay, Jack. Bye." He reached out and started to close the door, forcing Jack to pull his head back before his neck got stuck.
Jack stood out in the hallway for a moment, staring at the closed door.
Hexes?
It was a good thing he'd been insane long before he'd taken this job, or he'd be having some pretty fundamental questions about sanity right about now.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Robert sighed and scratched out the last line of his translation, again. Bombs, bombs, bombs. All anyone cared about was bombs. He had some lovely cuneiform tablets awaiting his attention, but was that a priority? Noooo. "Dr. Rothman, is this a weapon?" "Dr. Rothman, when it blinks and starts vibrating, is that bad?" "Rothman, are you done with the doomsday killing annihilation machine from Neptune yet?"
Soldiers!
He got up to get himself some more coffee, and walked into thin air.
He sat back down in his chair with a thump. All right. That had been different.
He reached out with one hand and had just enough time to feel something suspiciously breast-like when the thin air slapped him.
Robert ran.
Nyan jumped as the storage room door banged open and Robert grabbed him by the collar.
"My office is haunted!" he screamed.
"Calm down!" Nyan screamed back, and blinked. "Wait - what?"
"Haunted!" Robert yelled. "There's a ghost! A phantom! A spirit! It slapped me!"
Nyan took inspiration from Robert's last comment and thumped him smartly on the side of the head. Robert took a few deep breaths and let go of Nyan's shirt.
"Thanks," he said shakily. "I needed that."
"I could tell," Nyan said dryly. "Now... what's going on?"
* * * * * * * * * * *
"You know what this is about?" Daniel asked as he sat down at the briefing room table.
"I do not."
"Me neither," Sam said, sitting down across from them.
Daniel took in the strange look on her face. "What's wrong?"
"Rothman tried to feel me up in the linguistics lab."
"Robert?" Daniel blurted. "Are you sure? I mean... he's not really a ladies man, Sam."
"You're telling me," Sam grumbled, holding one arm protectively across her chest.
"Hi, kids," Jack caroled from the doorway. He sauntered into the room and pulled out Sam's chair, sitting himself down in her lap.
"Sir!" Sam protested.
Jack yelped and leaped to his feet. "There's something in that chair!"
Daniel and Teal'c exchanged glances. "Uh... yeah," Daniel said, carefully leaving the 'you moron' unspoken.
"But there's nothing there!"
Daniel pursed his lips. "And yet you just said there was," he said gently.
Jack gave him a suspicious look. "I don't see anything, Daniel."
The looks Daniel and Teal'c traded were a little more alarmed this time. "That's where Sam's sitting."
"No, she isn't," Jack said positively. "There's nobody there."
"She is indeed, O'Neill," Teal'c rumbled.
Daniel gave the empty chair a glazed look. "Sam says to tell you... that the... uh, the co... something..."
"The coefficient of the energy emitted by liquid naquadah when it is introduced to uranium is seventeen point three joules less than when it is combined with plutonium," Teal'c said smoothly.
They all stared at him, and then turned as one to look at the empty chair Sam was sitting in.
"Well, that certainly sounds like Carter," Jack said cautiously.
"Oh, boy," Daniel muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"I informed you we should not have used the foxglove," Teal'c said.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"It's definitely Sam," Janet said authoritatively, snapping off her rubber gloves. Jack winced.
"How can you be sure? I mean, there's nobody there."
The blanket on top of the gurney in front of Fraiser rustled a little, and Daniel snorted. Jack quirked an eyebrow at him, but Daniel just gave him an uncomfortable smile and looked away.
"Well, I was dubious at first," Janet admitted. "But after getting a clear image of a human body out of an empty MRI chamber..." she shrugged. "Plus, once I find the right place, I can feel her pulse."
"It does explain Rothman's close encounter in the linguistics lab," Jack admitted. Daniel gave the gurney an incredulous look. "But why's she like that?"
"Ah... that might be our fault," Daniel said apologetically, jerking a thumb in Teal'c's direction.
Jack frowned. "The hex?"
Daniel shifted and stared at the floor, crossing his arms. "Yes, well... it wasn't actually a hex, and it might explain why Teal'c and I are the only ones who can still see her." He straightened suddenly, giving the gurney a wounded look. "I am not! Well, what else do you want me to do? And why are you getting mad at me? That wasn't my fault. No, that was Teal'c's idea. I did not, that was you! Sam, you promised! Witch. Witch. Witch!"
Teal'c cleared his throat and Daniel subsided. "Fine. Teal'c, you tell them." He shot a venomous look in Sam's direction.
"We were, in fact, attempting an exorcism."
Jack goggled. "On Carter? Why?"
"We were concerned she was possessed by an evil spirit," Teal'c said and went no further, apparently finding this an acceptable explanation.
"But... she doesn't do the pea soup head thing," Jack blurted, making a circle in the air with one finger to illustrate someone's head turning around.
Daniel sighed. "'The Exorcist' and Linda Blair aside, Jack, most cultures have some form of witchcraft or belief in possession by spirits, whether benign or malevolent. Given the evidence, and taking into account some of the more... unusual things we've encountered in the past few years, it was a reasonable assumption."
"What evidence, Daniel?" Janet asked.
Daniel winced and cast an apologetic glance at the gurney. "The whole, uh, black widow thing," he mumbled.
There was a momentary silence as Janet's eyebrows climbed towards her hairline and Jack took an involuntary step back from the gurney.
"Doctor Jackson, what exactly did this spell of yours entail?" Janet asked in a deliberately calm voice.
"Well, actually, I wrote it down," Daniel admitted, digging through his pockets until he unearthed a battered notebook. "What?" he said defensively in the direction of the gurney. "That's what I do!"
Janet riffled through the notebook. "Where did you get this spell?"
"Well, we couldn't really find what we wanted, so we sort of... cut and pasted a bit."
"The incantation is from Chulak," Teal'c supplied. "And the herbs are the Earth equivalents of ones Daniel Jackson observed being used on Abydos."
"And the pentagram?"
"'The Craft.'"
"I see." Janet nodded judiciously, and burst out laughing. Everyone stared at her.
"Janet?"
"Sorry," Janet gasped. "It's just that this has got to be the silliest spell I've ever seen in my life. It's a miracle they managed to do anything, much less something as obvious as turning Sam invisible and inaudible." Still shaking her head, she turned to her medicine cabinet and took out a pill bottle, tossing it in Sam's general direction. The bottle hovered in the air above the gurney. "Take three of those, then go to the locker room and rub this..." she rummaged in the cabinet for another moment, and pulled out a second bottle "...on your skin. You should be fine in a few hours, as long as you avoid anything made of iron. Oh, and don't forget to pour a little of that on anything in your pockets you want to become visible again. I wouldn't bother with the clothes."
The bottles didn't move.
"Well? Go on!"
The bottles wavered for a moment, and then began floating uncertainly in the direction of the doorway.
"Janet," Daniel said timidly. "Um..."
"What just happened?" Jack asked. Daniel made 'what he said' motions.
"Aspirin and witch hazel," Janet said briskly. "Aspirin is made from willow, which protects from enchantment, and witch hazel is handy for manifestation and spirit contact. Honestly, didn't you do any research at all?"
Daniel blinked. "Not that kind."
Teal'c frowned. "Doctor Fraiser, why did you not offer your help earlier?"
Janet gave an unladylike snort. "Because Sam isn't possessed by anything, which anyone with eyes should be able to see. I had no idea you were going to try something this harebrained or I would have intervened."
Daniel blushed and stared at the floor. Teal'c frowned.
"Does this mean you're a..." Jack's voice trailed off and he made the same circling motion as before with his hand, which apparently was supposed to translate as both 'witch' and 'head-spinning projectile-vomiting spawn of Satan'.
"Witch?" Janet asked mildly. "No, but my roommate in college was fascinated by it, so I checked some books out of the library. Lucky for Sam it stuck in my head." She rolled her eyes. "Now get out of my infirmary, all of you. Go do something productive for once."
* * * * * * * * * * *
Daniel scratched out the last line of his translation for the fifth time and sighed. It had been a really distracting day, very bad for his concentration. After Sam had become visible and, unfortunately, audible again, it had taken him a good two hours to convince her not to exact some kind of revenge on him for revealing her secret. In the end Janet had come to his rescue, pointing out that if Daniel and Teal'c hadn't come clean about what had happened she would still be invisible. That was about when Sam turned a little pink and Daniel started wondering what she had been doing while invisible.
He shook his head, deciding he really didn't want to know. Suffice it to say he was just glad he hadn't been taking a shower at any point.
Daniel's office door opened and Jack marched in.
"Hi, Daniel. Working late?"
Daniel sighed again. "More like not working late, but yes. Here late, anyway. What's up?"
Jack shrugged and commenced his usual tour of Daniel's office, picking up and discarding everything fragile within eyesight. Daniel resisted the urge to close his eyes. "No reason. I'm bored. Carter's visible again, by the way."
"Yeah," Daniel groaned. "I know."
Jack laughed. "Gave you an earful, did she?"
Daniel nodded. "Yeah. Of course, she didn't have to wait to become visible to do that, because Teal'c and I could already see her. But yes, she did make her displeasure known."
Jack shook his head. "I still can't believe you guys tried to exorcise her. You're so nuts."
Daniel shook a finger in Jack's direction. "Just remember you're including Teal'c in that description."
Jack raised one eyebrow. "Your point?"
"True."
Jack put down a tablet from P6R 231 and wandered towards the door. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow. Just wanted to check in before I left." He paused. "You know, I think I would have gotten along well with your mother."
Daniel froze. "What do you mean?"
Jack grinned. "Fabulous sense of humor. Daniel 'Stubborn' Jackson? Perceptive, too."
Daniel gaped. "Who told you that? Was it Sam? She promised!"
"She didn't need to." Jack stuck his hand in his pockets and rocked back and forth, obviously pleased with himself. "It's amazing what you can find on the internet these days, as long as you know what language you're working from." He smiled one last time. "Night, Daniel!"
"Oh, crap," Daniel whimpered, banging his head on his desk.
THE END
RATING: PG-13
CAEGORY: Humor
SUMMARY: A day in the life.
SPOILERS: None. Vague reference to any episode Sam's love life is massacred, which sadly is way too many to name.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The book Teal'c steals from Daniel really does exist - it's by Arthur C. Lehmann and while I've never read it and have no idea if it's any good, it was one of the first things to pop up when I ran a search on Amazon so it won by default. Also, all the witchcraft stuff I just plain made up. Don't try this at home, kids! Oh, and if I got any of the language stuff wrong, I apologize. Much as I might wish I had Daniel's brain sometimes, I really don't.
C'EST LA VIE
Daniel ran.
Heart pumping, chest heaving, legs burning, his feet pounded the earth. Up ahead, he saw Captain Britton shove aside a tree branch as he crashed through the underbrush. Daniel chanced a look back. They were still being followed.
He rounded an outcropping and came within sight of the gate. Putting on a burst of speed he hadn't realized he was capable of and knew he'd pay for later, Daniel sprinted to the DHD and slapped his hand down on the symbols. He barely heard the arrival of Lieutenant Abele and Sergeant Owens over his own harsh panting.
The wormhole gushed out and Captain Britton waved the GDO to show he'd sent the code. Daniel turned and ran through the gate. He felt the cool air of the mountain on his face and heard the clang of the ramp under his feet and collapsed on his hands and knees.
Home. Beautiful, sweet, lovely, safe home. There wasn't anywhere like it.
"So, I hear you guys had a little excitement today," Jack said, once again displaying his absolute mastery of understating the obvious. Daniel put down the artifact he'd been studying and folded his hands neatly on his desk.
"You know that scene in the first Jurassic Park movie where they're in the Jeep and they're being chased by the tyrannosaur? And Jeff Goldblum's character keeps yelling 'Must go faster'?"
Jack nodded cautiously.
"Well, I just wish we'd had a Jeep."
Jack's jaw dropped. "You were chased by a T Rex?" He grinned. "No way! That is so cool!"
Daniel gave him a sour look. "You were one of those obnoxious children who knew all the names of the dinosaurs before you could walk, weren't you?"
Jack grinned unrepentantly, swiped the artifact, Daniel's empty coffee mug, and his paperweight from the table, and started juggling. Daniel cringed.
"I was a boy child, Daniel. That's what all boy children do. Not that you'd know."
Daniel leaned forward and plucked his authentic Viking drinking horn out of the air with the ease of long practice. "I had different priorities," he said primly. "While you were reciting dinosaurs I was learning the names of the pharaohs in dynastic order in the original heiroglyphs."
Jack caught the paperweight and the artifact and set them back down on the table. "You know how some people say their middle name is 'danger'? Yours is 'boring'." He scowled as Daniel busied himself with the coffee maker. "And I can't believe you drink your coffee out of that thing."
Daniel smiled. "A mug's a mug." He took a sip to prove his point. Jack's scowl deepened and Daniel's smile grew. He would tell Jack over his dead body that the drinking horn was just a replica. It was way too much fun to watch Jack shudder as he imagined the centuries of ingrained dust Daniel was imbibing.
There was a discreet knock at the door.
"Come in, Teal'c," Daniel called.
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c acknowledged.
Jack raised his eyebrows. "How did you know it was him?"
Daniel gave Jack a pointed look. "He knocks."
Jack dismissed that as an unproductive line of conversation and executed a neat mental u-turn. "What is your middle name, anyway?"
Daniel smiled and picked up his pen. "That's for me to know and you to never find out."
Jack straightened immediately. "You know you can't say things like that to me." He elbowed Daniel out of the way and began clicking through the base files on Daniel's computer, frowning when he uncovered Daniel's personnel file. "Daniel Balsturig Jackson? It sounds kind of funny, but it's not that bad." He looked disappointed.
From the bookcase, Teal'c said "Daniel Jackson, does that not mean - "
Daniel looked up sharply.
" - I believe Major Carter requires my assistance," Teal'c continued smoothly. "Good day." He bowed his head and left.
Jack gave Daniel a suspicious look. "What does it mean?"
"Nothing." Daniel pushed Jack out of the way and went back to his translation. "My mom's idea of a joke."
"It's not very funny."
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Tell me about it."
Jack straightened abruptly. "That's okay. You don't want to tell me. I understand." He gave Daniel a cheery smile. "I'll just have to find out for myself."
Daniel watched him leave, then lunged for the phone.
Nyan hung up and stood for a moment staring at the phone in perplexity. "Robert?"
"What?" Rothman asked, not bothering to look up from his translation.
"That was Daniel. He says we're not allowed to tell Colonel O'Neill what 'balsturig' means."
"Okay."
Nyan frowned. "Don't you want to know why?"
"No," Robert said emphatically.
Nyan thought about that for a moment.
"Probably wise."
Jack ran Teal'c to ground in his quarters. "Teal'c, you decent?" he yelled, and opened the door without waiting for an answer.
Carter jumped guiltily and slammed the book she'd been reading shut. Teal'c reached over and slapped off the television.
Jack grinned wolfishly. "Hi, kids. Whatcha doing?"
Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "It is no business of yours, O'Neill. And we have previously discussed the matter of knocking before one enters, have we not?"
Jack eyed Carter, who was getting progressively redder as the conversation went on. "Carter?"
She jumped. "Nothing! We're not doing anything!"
Jack gave her an incredulous look. "How did you ever get away with anything when you were a kid, Carter?" he asked rhetorically, then shook himself and returned to his original mission. He'd find out what they were up to eventually. "Teal'c, what does Balsturig mean?"
Teal'c stared at him. Jack stared back. Teal'c didn't blink, and after a moment Jack scowled and looked away. Teal'c was hell at the poker table. The one time SG-3 had ever invited him to play he'd cleaned them all out in under half an hour.
"It sounds sort of Germanic, sir," Carter said, her face slowly regaining its normal hue. "Beyond that I have no idea."
"All right." Jack watched them another moment. "Behave yourselves, kids. Don't do anything I would do." He smiled evilly at Carter, hoping she'd crack, but she was resolutely not looking in his direction.
Oh, well, Jack thought as he shut the door. It was only a matter of time. Next stop, the archaeology/linguistics lab.
"You're telling me you've never heard of it?" Jack asked in disbelief.
Nyan edged around until the lab table was firmly between himself and the colonel and shook his head from the relative safety of the humanoid remains collection. "No, I'm sorry. It could be a strictly Earth language, though, in which case it's not surprising I wouldn't recognize it."
Jack leaned across the table. "It doesn't even sound familiar?"
Nyan leaned back and contemplated arming himself with a femur. "No, sorry."
"Huh." Jack frowned and turned to Robert. "How 'bout you, Rothman?"
Robert tapped his chin thoughtfully with his pencil. "If your initial presumption of Slavic or Germanic origins is correct, it's likely that it's either a traditional name of a hereditary type or perhaps has ties with any number of mythological tales or examples of oral history. Most names - taking into account, again, the presumption that it's European in origin - have their origins in the Latin or the Bible, calling on Biblical characters or Latin root words to confer upon the recipient of the name a measure of strength or virility, or some other characteristic which the ancestors believed had some importance or would confer a favorable advantage onto its recipient. It is always possible, however, that it came not from such traditional venues but from somewhere a little more eclectic, like an ancient clan name or region or... I'm sorry, what was the question again?"
Jack gave Robert a glazed look. "I'm sure I knew when I asked, but that incredibly unhelpful - and yet unending - stream of utterly useless information has completely wiped it from my brain." He clapped his hands over his mouth, looking horrified. "Oh, my god, I'm starting to sound like you! You're sucking out my brain and replacing it with boring stuff!" He got to his feet and backed toward the door, casting deeply suspicious looks in Rothman's direction until he made it to the relative safety of the hallway.
Nyan stood up from where he'd been crouched behind the skull box and stared at Robert.
"I want to be like you when I grow up," he said in awe.
Daniel's office door banged open and Jack marched in. "Rothman just traumatized me," he complained, and collapsed dramatically on the floor.
Daniel made sympathetic noises and tossed Jack a bag of M&Ms from his stash. "I'm sorry. I did tell you it wouldn't do any good."
Jack upended the bag and emptied half of it in one go. "It was awful. He kept using really long words and convoluted sentence structures." He gave Daniel a baleful look. "You know how much I hate convoluted sentence structures."
"I know," Daniel said, watching the rest of the M&Ms disappear with a rapidity that would have put Janet to shame.
"And run-on sentences!" Jack continued heatedly. "I mean, there are run-on sentences and then there are run-on novels. On a scale of one to run-on this thing was fricking War and Peace."
He brightened suddenly.
"Hey, Daniel?"
"What?"
"Why would Teal'c be watching that goth chick movie Cassie has?"
Daniel blinked. "He's Teal'c."
Sadly, that was a very good explanation. Jack switched tracks and put on his most pathetic expression. "At least tell me what language it's in."
Daniel sighed. "Fine. It's Dutch. Don't bother looking it up - it's a family thing."
"Then how did Teal'c know it?" Jack pointed put reasonably.
Daniel raised his eyebrows.
"Right. Never mind."
Daniel sidled up to Teal'c's door and knocked discreetly. The chatter from within stopped abruptly, and there was a brief scrambling noise.
"Enter," Teal'c called.
Daniel eased the door open and slipped inside, eyeing the layout of the room with interest. Teal'c's candles had been arranged in an elaborate pentagram pattern centering on Sam, who was seated cross-legged on the floor trying her best not to look like she had been caught doing something naughty. Teal'c was just finishing stuffing something under the bed.
"Hello," Daniel said, drawing the word out in inquiry. Sam's chin raised defiantly. "Teal'c, any particular reason you borrowed 'The Craft' from Cassie and stole 'Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion: An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural' out of my office earlier today? 'Cos I have to say it's starting to look a little suspicious."
"The reasons are simple," Teal'c said.
"Teal'c, you promised!" Sam exclaimed, looking hurt.
"Daniel Jackson will not betray your secret," Teal'c soothed. "If he does I will reveal to Colonel O'Neill the translation of his middle name. He may be of some help."
Daniel frowned. Sam crossed her arms, thinking it over. "Okay." She fired a challenging look in Daniel's direction. "But you have to promise not to laugh."
"I promise."
"Swear on your coffee maker?"
"I swear."
"Okay." She shot Teal'c a pleading look. "Well, I was venting at Janet about how every guy I try to date ends up dead, and Teal'c overheard and said he would try and help."
Daniel blinked. "So this is..."
Sam flushed and looked at the ground. "An exorcism," she said miserably.
"Oh," Daniel said. Sam gave him a sideways glance. His mouth twitched. Sam made a growling noise deep in her throat and Daniel hastily ducked his head, taking several deep breaths. When he looked up, his face was straight.
"Sam, maybe you should just stop dating aliens," he said, his voice wobbling suspiciously on the last word. Sam's eyes narrowed.
"'Balsturig' is a Dutch word," Teal'c said quickly. "It means 'stubborn'."
Sam's jaw dropped. "Stubborn?" She said faintly. "Your middle name is... Stubborn?"
"No," Daniel said, crossing his arms and scowling. "My middle name is Balsturig."
Sam covered her mouth with one hand. "Daniel Stubborn Jackson." She made a choking noise. "Your name is Daniel Stubborn Jackson."
Daniel glowered at her. "I didn't laugh at you," he said pointedly.
Sam's face contorted in a grimace worthy of an Unas, and when she took her hand away her face was straight even if she couldn't look Daniel in the eye.
"Okay. You're right. No laughing." Her mouth twitched. "...Stubborn."
"Witch," Daniel shot back, sounding like he'd just as soon exchange the word for something similar in sound but different in meaning.
"Stubborn."
"Witch."
Teal'c rolled his eyes and cleared his throat pointedly. Sam and Daniel subsided immediately, looking sheepish. Teal'c pulled the supplies he'd stashed out from under his bed, lining them up neatly on the cement floor.
"Okay," Daniel said with a last amused look at Sam. "There was something sort of like this I saw them use on Abydos once..."
Jack stole noiselessly up to Teal'c's door and pressed his ear against the thick metal, scowling in irritation as he failed to distinguish words from the drone of voices within. He took a deep breath, waited for a pause in the conversation, and threw the door open.
There was a thud and a suspiciously Daniel-like "Ow!" as the door stopped short. Jack leaned his head around the opening and winced apologetically at Daniel, who was seated on the ground rubbing his back.
"Jack, haven't we talked about the whole knocking thing?"
"Yeah, but..." his voice trailed off as he took in the condition of the rest of the room. "What the hell are you guys up to?"
Carter turned red and looked at the floor. Teal'c just stared at him.
"Daniel?"
Daniel gave him a pissy look. "If you must know, we're trying to put a hex on Anubis."
Jack's jaw dropped. "A hex?"
"A hex. You know, a curse."
"I know what a hex is." He gave Carter a puzzled look. "I'm just confused as to why you're bothering." Mostly he was confused as to why his determinedly scientific 2IC would be participating. He wouldn't put hexes past Daniel and Teal'c for a moment.
Her eyes met his for an instant, then returned to the cement floor. "It seemed like a good idea," she said defensively.
"So if you're putting a hex on Anubis, why is Carter sitting in the penta-thingy?"
"She had to sit somewhere," Daniel said, his eyes wide and innocent.
Jack frowned. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"Oh, yes." Daniel smiled beatifically. "Sam is a surprisingly good witch, actually."
Teal'c made a choking noise. They all turned and stared at him. He raised one eyebrow, his face impassive. Jack shook himself and turned back to pentagram at hand. "She is?"
Carter smiled brightly, finally meeting his eyes. "I'm about as good at being a witch as Daniel is at being stubborn, sir." Was it just him or was there a slightly malicious glint in her eyes?
Teal'c made another choking noise.
"Right," Jack said intelligently. "Well, you guys just don't... blow anything up, or... turn into toads or anything."
Daniel gave him a sunny smile. "Okay, Jack. Bye." He reached out and started to close the door, forcing Jack to pull his head back before his neck got stuck.
Jack stood out in the hallway for a moment, staring at the closed door.
Hexes?
It was a good thing he'd been insane long before he'd taken this job, or he'd be having some pretty fundamental questions about sanity right about now.
Robert sighed and scratched out the last line of his translation, again. Bombs, bombs, bombs. All anyone cared about was bombs. He had some lovely cuneiform tablets awaiting his attention, but was that a priority? Noooo. "Dr. Rothman, is this a weapon?" "Dr. Rothman, when it blinks and starts vibrating, is that bad?" "Rothman, are you done with the doomsday killing annihilation machine from Neptune yet?"
Soldiers!
He got up to get himself some more coffee, and walked into thin air.
He sat back down in his chair with a thump. All right. That had been different.
He reached out with one hand and had just enough time to feel something suspiciously breast-like when the thin air slapped him.
Robert ran.
Nyan jumped as the storage room door banged open and Robert grabbed him by the collar.
"My office is haunted!" he screamed.
"Calm down!" Nyan screamed back, and blinked. "Wait - what?"
"Haunted!" Robert yelled. "There's a ghost! A phantom! A spirit! It slapped me!"
Nyan took inspiration from Robert's last comment and thumped him smartly on the side of the head. Robert took a few deep breaths and let go of Nyan's shirt.
"Thanks," he said shakily. "I needed that."
"I could tell," Nyan said dryly. "Now... what's going on?"
"You know what this is about?" Daniel asked as he sat down at the briefing room table.
"I do not."
"Me neither," Sam said, sitting down across from them.
Daniel took in the strange look on her face. "What's wrong?"
"Rothman tried to feel me up in the linguistics lab."
"Robert?" Daniel blurted. "Are you sure? I mean... he's not really a ladies man, Sam."
"You're telling me," Sam grumbled, holding one arm protectively across her chest.
"Hi, kids," Jack caroled from the doorway. He sauntered into the room and pulled out Sam's chair, sitting himself down in her lap.
"Sir!" Sam protested.
Jack yelped and leaped to his feet. "There's something in that chair!"
Daniel and Teal'c exchanged glances. "Uh... yeah," Daniel said, carefully leaving the 'you moron' unspoken.
"But there's nothing there!"
Daniel pursed his lips. "And yet you just said there was," he said gently.
Jack gave him a suspicious look. "I don't see anything, Daniel."
The looks Daniel and Teal'c traded were a little more alarmed this time. "That's where Sam's sitting."
"No, she isn't," Jack said positively. "There's nobody there."
"She is indeed, O'Neill," Teal'c rumbled.
Daniel gave the empty chair a glazed look. "Sam says to tell you... that the... uh, the co... something..."
"The coefficient of the energy emitted by liquid naquadah when it is introduced to uranium is seventeen point three joules less than when it is combined with plutonium," Teal'c said smoothly.
They all stared at him, and then turned as one to look at the empty chair Sam was sitting in.
"Well, that certainly sounds like Carter," Jack said cautiously.
"Oh, boy," Daniel muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"I informed you we should not have used the foxglove," Teal'c said.
"It's definitely Sam," Janet said authoritatively, snapping off her rubber gloves. Jack winced.
"How can you be sure? I mean, there's nobody there."
The blanket on top of the gurney in front of Fraiser rustled a little, and Daniel snorted. Jack quirked an eyebrow at him, but Daniel just gave him an uncomfortable smile and looked away.
"Well, I was dubious at first," Janet admitted. "But after getting a clear image of a human body out of an empty MRI chamber..." she shrugged. "Plus, once I find the right place, I can feel her pulse."
"It does explain Rothman's close encounter in the linguistics lab," Jack admitted. Daniel gave the gurney an incredulous look. "But why's she like that?"
"Ah... that might be our fault," Daniel said apologetically, jerking a thumb in Teal'c's direction.
Jack frowned. "The hex?"
Daniel shifted and stared at the floor, crossing his arms. "Yes, well... it wasn't actually a hex, and it might explain why Teal'c and I are the only ones who can still see her." He straightened suddenly, giving the gurney a wounded look. "I am not! Well, what else do you want me to do? And why are you getting mad at me? That wasn't my fault. No, that was Teal'c's idea. I did not, that was you! Sam, you promised! Witch. Witch. Witch!"
Teal'c cleared his throat and Daniel subsided. "Fine. Teal'c, you tell them." He shot a venomous look in Sam's direction.
"We were, in fact, attempting an exorcism."
Jack goggled. "On Carter? Why?"
"We were concerned she was possessed by an evil spirit," Teal'c said and went no further, apparently finding this an acceptable explanation.
"But... she doesn't do the pea soup head thing," Jack blurted, making a circle in the air with one finger to illustrate someone's head turning around.
Daniel sighed. "'The Exorcist' and Linda Blair aside, Jack, most cultures have some form of witchcraft or belief in possession by spirits, whether benign or malevolent. Given the evidence, and taking into account some of the more... unusual things we've encountered in the past few years, it was a reasonable assumption."
"What evidence, Daniel?" Janet asked.
Daniel winced and cast an apologetic glance at the gurney. "The whole, uh, black widow thing," he mumbled.
There was a momentary silence as Janet's eyebrows climbed towards her hairline and Jack took an involuntary step back from the gurney.
"Doctor Jackson, what exactly did this spell of yours entail?" Janet asked in a deliberately calm voice.
"Well, actually, I wrote it down," Daniel admitted, digging through his pockets until he unearthed a battered notebook. "What?" he said defensively in the direction of the gurney. "That's what I do!"
Janet riffled through the notebook. "Where did you get this spell?"
"Well, we couldn't really find what we wanted, so we sort of... cut and pasted a bit."
"The incantation is from Chulak," Teal'c supplied. "And the herbs are the Earth equivalents of ones Daniel Jackson observed being used on Abydos."
"And the pentagram?"
"'The Craft.'"
"I see." Janet nodded judiciously, and burst out laughing. Everyone stared at her.
"Janet?"
"Sorry," Janet gasped. "It's just that this has got to be the silliest spell I've ever seen in my life. It's a miracle they managed to do anything, much less something as obvious as turning Sam invisible and inaudible." Still shaking her head, she turned to her medicine cabinet and took out a pill bottle, tossing it in Sam's general direction. The bottle hovered in the air above the gurney. "Take three of those, then go to the locker room and rub this..." she rummaged in the cabinet for another moment, and pulled out a second bottle "...on your skin. You should be fine in a few hours, as long as you avoid anything made of iron. Oh, and don't forget to pour a little of that on anything in your pockets you want to become visible again. I wouldn't bother with the clothes."
The bottles didn't move.
"Well? Go on!"
The bottles wavered for a moment, and then began floating uncertainly in the direction of the doorway.
"Janet," Daniel said timidly. "Um..."
"What just happened?" Jack asked. Daniel made 'what he said' motions.
"Aspirin and witch hazel," Janet said briskly. "Aspirin is made from willow, which protects from enchantment, and witch hazel is handy for manifestation and spirit contact. Honestly, didn't you do any research at all?"
Daniel blinked. "Not that kind."
Teal'c frowned. "Doctor Fraiser, why did you not offer your help earlier?"
Janet gave an unladylike snort. "Because Sam isn't possessed by anything, which anyone with eyes should be able to see. I had no idea you were going to try something this harebrained or I would have intervened."
Daniel blushed and stared at the floor. Teal'c frowned.
"Does this mean you're a..." Jack's voice trailed off and he made the same circling motion as before with his hand, which apparently was supposed to translate as both 'witch' and 'head-spinning projectile-vomiting spawn of Satan'.
"Witch?" Janet asked mildly. "No, but my roommate in college was fascinated by it, so I checked some books out of the library. Lucky for Sam it stuck in my head." She rolled her eyes. "Now get out of my infirmary, all of you. Go do something productive for once."
Daniel scratched out the last line of his translation for the fifth time and sighed. It had been a really distracting day, very bad for his concentration. After Sam had become visible and, unfortunately, audible again, it had taken him a good two hours to convince her not to exact some kind of revenge on him for revealing her secret. In the end Janet had come to his rescue, pointing out that if Daniel and Teal'c hadn't come clean about what had happened she would still be invisible. That was about when Sam turned a little pink and Daniel started wondering what she had been doing while invisible.
He shook his head, deciding he really didn't want to know. Suffice it to say he was just glad he hadn't been taking a shower at any point.
Daniel's office door opened and Jack marched in.
"Hi, Daniel. Working late?"
Daniel sighed again. "More like not working late, but yes. Here late, anyway. What's up?"
Jack shrugged and commenced his usual tour of Daniel's office, picking up and discarding everything fragile within eyesight. Daniel resisted the urge to close his eyes. "No reason. I'm bored. Carter's visible again, by the way."
"Yeah," Daniel groaned. "I know."
Jack laughed. "Gave you an earful, did she?"
Daniel nodded. "Yeah. Of course, she didn't have to wait to become visible to do that, because Teal'c and I could already see her. But yes, she did make her displeasure known."
Jack shook his head. "I still can't believe you guys tried to exorcise her. You're so nuts."
Daniel shook a finger in Jack's direction. "Just remember you're including Teal'c in that description."
Jack raised one eyebrow. "Your point?"
"True."
Jack put down a tablet from P6R 231 and wandered towards the door. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow. Just wanted to check in before I left." He paused. "You know, I think I would have gotten along well with your mother."
Daniel froze. "What do you mean?"
Jack grinned. "Fabulous sense of humor. Daniel 'Stubborn' Jackson? Perceptive, too."
Daniel gaped. "Who told you that? Was it Sam? She promised!"
"She didn't need to." Jack stuck his hand in his pockets and rocked back and forth, obviously pleased with himself. "It's amazing what you can find on the internet these days, as long as you know what language you're working from." He smiled one last time. "Night, Daniel!"
"Oh, crap," Daniel whimpered, banging his head on his desk.
THE END
