A Fine Aim
Chapter 1
“You okay, Jack?”
Blue eyes peered over wire-framed glasses beneath a shock of golden-brown bangs. Concerned blue eyes. Just what he needed.
Jack finished tucking his black t-shirt into his pants, grabbed his jungle camo jacket from his locker and swung the door shut. He turned a purposefully confused face on his revoltingly sincere teammate.
“Who, me? Why do you ask?”
He noted the tension in the younger man’s shoulders, the sudden hesitancy in his stance as if, now that the question had escaped, Daniel wasn’t quite sure whether or not he should have opened his mouth. Jack squelched a groan as Daniel’s eyebrows rose and the blue gaze dropped to the floor, his hands busy with the buttons on his own jacket.
“Well, I know it’s been a… difficult… few weeks,” Daniel managed to get the words out.
Jack stepped towards the alcove where their two vests still hung, newly re-packed according to each man’s particular needs. For Jack, his binoculars, C4, ammo clips, extra tissues for Daniel, and a new yo-yo, his last one now in the hands of an eager Councilman Kalan; for Daniel, power bars, allergy meds, tissues, a set of brushes, a bandana, pens, a notebook, and, oh, yeah, a couple of ammo clips, maybe. The Air Force veteran automatically checked each tightly velcroed compartment while silently urging Daniel to beat his way out of the bushes and finally get to whatever his point was. The archaeologist automatically mirrored his own movements, shrugging on his vest and absently patting the pockets as if he could identify the contents by touch.
“The whole situation with the Orbanians—with the children,” Daniel finally began, “it hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park.”
‘…for you.’ Jack mentally added his teammate’s obvious but unvoiced ending to that statement. He zipped his vest, wishing he could do the same to Daniel’s current obsessive bleating. “Yeah?” he muttered, narrowing his eyes and setting the ‘do you really want to go there?’ expression on his face. Daniel should recognize this one—it had been directed at him often enough. It usually preceded the ‘clueless bastard’ face that either shut Daniel up completely or released a torrent of passionate rhetoric.
“Yeah.”
The brightness of the archaeologist’s eyes told Jack they were veering into fervent speech territory. The icy coil that slithered through his gut as soon as he’d found out what Merrin faced when she returned to her world had left familiar wounds—some that had scarred over as the weeks progressed and some that had opened a trench between Jack and his favorite civilian scientist. Jack’s anger was all too easily revived at the memory of Daniel’s disturbingly reasonable excuses for handing over the innocent young girl, even if it had ended up being the only possible outcome. He’d get over it—he just needed some more time. A couple of run-of-the-mill missions, a few bad guys to shoot, captures to escape, boring old ruins to wander around while Daniel enthused for hours and he’d be able to look at his teammate without the urge to snarl in his face. He sighed and shot one hand out to clamp on the young man’s shoulder—gotta derail the ‘talking about it’ train.
“Daniel. I’m fine.” He squeezed, once. “Gotta get your mind off this and into the present—new mission, new aliens, new… trees,” he swept one hand through the air as if to paint them into existence.
“Uh huh.”
The dryness of Daniel’s linguistic comeback juggled the colonel’s eyebrows upward. Nice wasn’t working, time to try something else. “What?” Jack finally snapped, arms crossing over his chest.
The fair head dropped again and Daniel stepped back to his locker and grabbed his boonie off the shelf before closing door. “Nothing, I guess,” he shrugged. Fiddling with the limp brim, he glanced back in Jack’s direction. “I guess if you say you’re fine, then you’re fine.”
“Thank you,” Jack replied, opening his arms dramatically and raising his eyes to the ceiling. “Now, can we please go to PR6-898?” He’d pay for it later—some dark night his doorbell would ring and an antsy, pizza-carrying Daniel would be standing there insisting that Jack unburden his soul about residual tension and too-smart, blonde-headed children getting the shaft, but by then, hopefully, Jack’s game-face would have been reconstructed over his bitterness and a few minutes of blathering on about feelings would convince his teammate that Jack’s scar tissue would hold. He opened the door and gestured Daniel ahead of him with a tight smile. Yeah, let’s work on avoiding that for as long as possible.
A far off rumble of thunder greeted the team on the other side of the wormhole and Daniel frowned up at the darkening sky. The air was heavy, the clouds perfectly still. If they were on Earth, he’d be closing his windows, making sure the matches and candles were in arm’s reach, and settling in for one of Colorado’s frequent downpours.
“Well, who forgot to check the weather report before we made our travel plans? Carter?”
Jack’s voice was playful and Daniel glanced over to see that Sam was grinning as she adjusted the brim of her field cap.
“Sorry, sir,” she replied evenly.
“Well, don’t let it happen again,” Jack added, flipping his unnecessary sunglasses down to lie against his chest. “You seem to have forgotten my last memo detailing the ‘Sunny Seventy Degree Planets with No Sand’ initiative. And, will you look at that,” he waved one arm towards the thick forest surrounding them, “trees! Again! Have you no sense of variety?”
Jack had been unreasonably even-tempered all day, considering, Daniel mused. Once Merrin and the other Rhone children had been evaluated and the rudiments of the school system had been set up on Orban, Jack had made a few more trips through the ‘gate, claiming his seniority allowed him to be the self-proclaimed Professor of Recess, and genuinely seemed to find his equilibrium among the squealing and giggling children. But Daniel watched him gravitate time and again to the side of the slim, adolescent girl, carefully patient in the face of her inability to communicate with him, painfully grateful for every shy smile or gesture that she made in his direction.
As the team broke into its familiar formation, Daniel fell into step with Sam a few yards behind where Jack’s lanky figure led, his long-legged gait eating up the miles between the ‘gate and the elaborate village structure the UAV had picked up. The wide path through the thick forest was well-defined—hard packed dirt bordered on each side with fist-sized rocks—and was sheltered by the sweep of leafy branches that arched overhead. The first drops of rain spattered loudly against broad leaves high in the canopy, but no moisture made its way through the maze of greenery to Daniel’s upturned face and he dropped his head to watch the back of the man who moved easily in front of him. Jack’s reaction in the locker room, his light-hearted comments to Sam, his usual studied carefree attitude all added up to a man completely at ease with the developments on Orban. Daniel just couldn’t bring himself to believe it.
Sitting in General Hammond’s office with an indignant Kalan who insisted that young Merrin return to her people to have her mind stripped of thought and memory, Daniel had felt the blaze of Jack’s anger—disgust and denial had radiated from the colonel where he stood rigid in the doorway, and Daniel had known he’d placed himself in its path. Jack’s words were hot and searing, accusing, harsh, but his eruption was not what Daniel had feared the most. It was the icy bitterness that was left once the first rush of heat had passed, the dark, emptiness that could eat at his strong friend’s soul, that filled the archaeologist with dread. Anyone who stood between Jack O’Neill and what he saw as the welfare of a child risked the military man’s sharp tongue and fierce tactical mind, but Daniel had been more worried about the grieving father reminded of his most tragic loss in this virtual ‘death’ of the innocent blonde girl he’d bonded with.
“Let’s step it up—maybe we can reach the village and do some recon before the visibility goes completely to shit.” Words thrown over Jack’s shoulder were easily heard in the damp stillness of the air and Sam and Daniel exchanged glances before quickening their pace. They needn’t look back to know that Teal’c would not fall behind.
He felt a sharp nudge in his ribcage and looked over into Sam’s glittering eyes. “You think it’s his trick knee telling the colonel to hurry?” she whispered.
“Which one?” Daniel blinked innocently in return.
“I heard that.”
Daniel smiled at his blonde teammate’s shameless shrug. Maybe Jack was right. Maybe Daniel should just believe his reassurances and set his mind to the mission. He dug both thumbs under the tight straps of his pack and jogged down the trail into the budding storm.
Chapter 2
The drizzle had turned into a steady rain falling straight down without a breath of wind—it silenced their booted steps and muted every other sound—voices, the crack of twigs beneath feet, the rustle of leaves as figures slowly pushed through the undergrowth. It drummed against the slight protection of Daniel’s boonie—he’d abandoned his glasses to a vest pocket a few yards back—and he squinted through his headache into the gloom that had grown beneath the large-boled trees as the team progressed.
Jack had slowed their pace when it was clear they’d never outrun this storm; now his back, jacket darkened to almost black by the rain, was visible as a moving shadow just ahead. Daniel turned to glance backward, strangely relieved by the sight of Teal’c's silent presence not too far behind. He hadn’t realized how much he depended on his sense of hearing to map his teammates’ places around him, to secure their positions nearby, even when he couldn’t see them. Here, on an alien world, beneath a rain that seemed to drill into the ground, it wasn’t his hopelessly rain-spotted lenses that he missed the most, but the small noises of his friends that his mind would process instinctively as a reminder that he didn’t travel alone.
That lack of even a breath of wind, the emptiness of the air of all but the soaking downpour, was the only reason Daniel recognized the stinging brush against his cheek as an immediate sign of danger. He let out a warning shout and pushed Sam hard, sending her stumbling to one knee at the edge of the path. Daniel followed her down, automatically shielding her with his larger form and turning his pack-clad back to what he believed was the source of the projectile. Jack was at his side in a moment.
“Daniel—what?”
The inarticulate grunt behind him had spun Jack on his heels and sent him back along the pathway to crouch next to his downed teammates, eyes flicking from point to point to take in the seemingly empty forest, the Beretta in Daniel’s hand, and the large figure of Teal’c standing, back turned to the other three, staff weapon pointed into the underbrush. The tension that had been growing along the back of his neck, that instinctual knowledge that the pounding rain was muffling the presence of watchers well-hidden in the trees, was whispering ‘I told you so’s’ into Jack’s mind, the voices all but shouting when Daniel pointed to the feathered shaft that had sprouted from the tree just off the path, and Jack’s eyes narrowed on the thin stripe of blood that decorated the archaeologist’s cheek. He nodded, one hand on Daniel’s shoulder to keep him in place, as he pulled his weapon around to sight along the trembling arrow and follow its path into the blur of green leaves and dark wet trunks that surrounded them.
The sound of Teal’c's staff weapon opening fizzled sharply through the continued drumming of the rain.
“Teal’c?”
The dark head did not turn. “At least two—possibly three—O’Neill.”
Jack sensed the frustrated movement of his 2IC at his knee. “Stay down, Major,” he breathed, his sharp gaze trying to pick out the tell-tale movements of leaf or branch, or an undisguised footfall among the noises of the storm.
“Jack, let me…”
Daniel. Of course. The colonel felt his lips thin in annoyance. Probably wanted to do his ‘we come in peace’ speech for the guys shooting arrows at them.
“Daniel…” Jack let the threat sound clearly in that one word.
“It might just have been a warning, Jack. I mean, we’ve been out here in plain sight for over two hours, they’ve had plenty of time—I doubt they want to hurt us.”
“Spoken by the guy with the blood on his face,” Jack snapped, momentarily distracted by the paling streaks washing down against Daniel’s white skin. He glanced down at Carter and saw that she’d pulled herself into a crouch, still sheltered by the bulk of Daniel’s back and backpack, and she was peering over Daniel’s shoulder, binoculars to one eye, scanning the forest. “Major—anything?”
“Maybe, sir,” she replied quietly, barely moving her mouth. “A couple of dark shapes at about 100 yards.”
Jack grunted. “That’d be a hell of a shot.”
“Well, they missed,” Daniel’s quiet reminder was altogether too sarcastic for Jack’s current level of anxiety. Someone was shooting at his team, but… Daniel wasn’t wrong. Teal’c stood unmoving and untouched in the center of the path, making himself the biggest target the worst shot on record would ever need.
“Okay. Carter—flank left, I’ll take the right. You and I will circle.” He glared at Daniel, making sure to capture the younger man’s wandering blue gaze and undivided attention for the moment. “Make nice, Daniel, but stay behind Teal’c. One target is enough—”
“O’Neill.”
Jack snapped a glare at the Jaffa.
“There is movement—two voices.”
He felt the movement too late as Daniel slipped away and stood, weapon holstered again, hands held out to either side in familiar supplication. Jack clenched his teeth and shifted quickly to the right, searching for the figures he knew were there, watching, waiting.
“My name is Daniel Jackson. We are not here to threaten you; we just want to talk, to meet with your people in peace.”
The words floated through Jack’s awareness. In his mind’s eye he could see the earnest concentration on his teammate’s face, the sincerity in his blue eyes, always ready to meet a new culture, strap on a smile, shake hands, and get down to the sharing, no matter what downright lethal practices that other culture held to. He shook his head sharply to flick the water from his face. Hopefully Daniel’s yammering would draw the attention of whoever had targeted them and he and Carter would get closer before any more hell broke loose. He edged quickly between low hanging branches, careful not to make any more noise than the pelting raindrops. Movement ahead sent him to a silent crouch against the bole of a huge, gnarled tree and he shifted his aim to cover the one large and two smaller shapes that seemed to coalesce from the blur of the forest around them.
“Perduun, Nobelle. Nona abbene paresca! We mean you no harm!”
“Could have fooled me,” Jack murmured to himself. He watched the figures move slowly between the trees passing from right to left, their clothing shades of tan and green that easily blended into the foliage around them. The deep voice obviously came from the taller figure—his posture and broad shouldered bulk beneath a dark brown cape and hood signaled strength and an almost regal bearing. The two smaller figures seemed almost childlike in comparison, each covered with cloaks and hoods of similar style in dark green and grey. Jack watched them pass through narrowed eyes, frozen in place, his wary gaze trained on the longbows held in the shorter figures’ hands. The bows were strung but not aimed, no arrows were poised to threaten, but those cloaks could hide a world of hurt if those weren’t the only weapons they carried. And he’d bet a pound of Carter’s favorite chocolate that they weren’t.
“Sounds like Italian, or proto-Italian, maybe Ligurian or Sabine…” Daniel’s muttered comments carried clearly through the heavy air. “Amico—friend,” his raised voice attempted the connection.
The trio continued forward towards the path, passing only a couple of yards from Jack’s crouched position. The muzzle of Jack’s MP5 followed them. It was only as the group slowed and made to step out into the open that one of the shorter figures slowly turned its head, the shadowed opening of the cloak centering on Jack’s motionless position. One hand thrust upwards, pushing the hood back to lie against his back, and dark eyes within a tanned face stared straight into Jack’s.
A boy. Jack moved his finger from the trigger. The face was smooth, adolescent, slightly soft in its features where the worries of manhood hadn’t taken root. The large eyes were wide, the lips set in a semblance of dignified irritation, dark hair drawn back from a high forehead in braids that disappeared behind the boy’s back beneath the cloak. And down the center of the forehead and on to the straight nose beneath were a series of black marks—dots or circles—that gave the human-looking boy an exotic, alien air.
It was the unblinking stare that drew the colonel to his feet, the muzzle of his weapon gradually falling to aim at the dirt as his feet. The youngster tilted his head as if in curiosity before turning back, the firm hand of the larger figure splayed on his back urging him forward. As soon as the dark eyes released him Jack moved left towards his exposed teammates, frowning at the look of dismissal on the young man’s face as he turned away.
Chapter 3
Jack watched as the tableau came into focus through the lessening rain—Teal’c still rigid, staff weapon primed, Daniel at his shoulder, gaze trying to take in everything at once, and a movement at the corner of his eye that Jack barely had to glance toward to identify as Carter, covering the three newcomers from her obscured position within the underbrush.
“My name is Daniel Jackson. We also mean no harm…” he hesitated a moment. “Do you understand me?”
The larger figure reached up with both hands to lower his hood revealing a head of wiry grey hair, subtly lined features, and a wide smile. “Of course, Nobelle,” he bobbed in a truncated sort of bow and Jack moved slowly to his left to place himself closer to Daniel and in line of sight with all three figures. “If you wish to speak the common language for your vingille, of course.”
Jack watched the thoughts chase themselves behind Daniel’s eyes. “Vingille… I don’t…”
“I am Gavorre,” the man placed a hand against his chest, “at your service.” Another short little bow. The man brought both hands to his sides to rest against the slender shoulders of the other two. “These are Soreen,” he smiled down at the young boy, “and Natua.”
Jack’s eyebrows rose as the smallest figure threw back her hood with a shake of her head. She couldn’t be more than seven or eight—features as smooth and even as the boy’s, her hair shading more towards auburn than dark brown but also held back in braids, with the same series of dots sweeping down from her forehead. Gaze flicking back and forth among the three, Jack noticed that the older man wore a similar, but smaller, design—consisting of only a few dots just on the forehead. Some kind of tribal tattoo? He shook his head—that was Daniel’s area, not his. At least everybody seemed to be making nice—for now. A family outing? His tension level receded.
Daniel gestured towards the figures at his side. “This is Teal’c and Colonel Jack O’Neill,” the linguist’s blue eyes settled on Jack for a moment, brows quirked up in a question, and Jack shook his head. No need to give away Carter’s position just yet.
“Pleased to meet ya,” Jack drawled, twisting his lips into a half-smile as the stranger’s gaze wandered his way for a moment before focusing back on Daniel.
“Nobelle,” the man seemed suddenly distraught, “please forgive.” He stroked his own cheek with one hand and then pointed to the cut on Daniel’s face. “Soreen did not intend…”
“Quente!” The boy raised his arm and the older man stammered to a halt. A flush of red across his cheeks signaled the teenager’s anger and a long mouthful of hurried syllables followed.
Daniel’s face bore that expression of intense concentration that made him look like he was passing a particularly difficult kidney stone, but Jack could read enough body language to know that the kid didn’t like his dad’s apology at all. The little girl—Natua—smiled smugly, clearly on the other kid’s side, and Jack couldn’t help a quick grin at the scene playing out before them. Kids 1, Adult 0, was his score from the sidelines when all the fast talking was over.
“Um, it’s okay,” Daniel smiled at the scowl deepening on the young boy’s face. “No harm done, see?” He reached up and dropped his boonie to his back and turned his injured cheek towards the three.
Gavorre drew in his breath sharply and lowered his gaze. “Perduun, mellti perduun, Nobelle.” One hand tightened on the boy’s slender arm and the man dropped what was clearly a stern command into Soreen’s ear. The boy jerked his arm, trying to draw away, but the older man shook him firmly.
“Hey,” Jack stepped forward, frowning at the kid’s rough treatment. “Never mind. We’re all good here.” He gestured to Daniel who stood blinking in confusion, mouth open to protest. “‘Nobbie’ here doesn’t want to get anybody into trouble, do you, Daniel?”
“Of course not.” His teammate hurried to follow Jack’s lead and change the subject. “We’ve come from far away to meet with your people, your leaders, to trade, form alliances.” He smiled as Gavorre released his hold on the boy, and Jack felt his own tension ease back from immediate threat to station-keeping. “We were just following the path to… your village—town?”
“Yes, yes. We all travel together to Oscanno, Nobelle?” The grey-haired man bobbed and smiled and looked around at the small group. “Has the other gone ahead?”
The little girl reached up and tugged on the older man’s cloak, pointing her bow into the underbrush directly at Carter’s position. Jack shook his head. Observant little kid.
“C’mon out, Carter.”
Weapon carefully lowered to rest against her vest, the major stood, smiling, and moved to flank Teal’c. “Hello.” Her smile widened as her eyes met the stare of the slender young girl’s. The Air Force major crouched, tugged off her field cap, and extended one hand. “My name’s Sam.”
Natua edged backwards, teeth set in a snarl, only to meet Gavorre’s broad hand against her back.
“Nobella,” the older man breathed, bowing again. “We are honored.”
Jack watched as Sam’s smile faltered and her arm dropped to her side. “Well,” he snapped into the strained silence, “now that we’re all friends, what do you say you take us to your leader?” He winked as the girl raised her eyes to his face and then chuckled to see her brows tighten in uncertainty. He gestured at the path and the old man, darting a swift glance at Daniel’s encouraging face as if seeking permission, ushered his charges before him, smiling widely as Daniel fell into step with him. Jack jerked his head at Carter, sending her to follow their teammate closely, knowing that Daniel would be too engrossed in language and customs and all that other crap to watch out for himself. He moved into position to bring up the rear with Teal’c.
“What do you think, T?”
Staff weapon now held as if it were no more than a walking stick, the Jaffa never took his eyes from the unfamiliar figures. “I am uncertain, O’Neill. It would seem that the child shot the arrow that wounded Daniel Jackson.”
“Target practice?” Jack smirked. The kid didn’t even know Daniel and he’d picked the most annoying one to aim at, how about that for karma, he mused.
The momentary silence that greeted his light-hearted comment told the colonel that his Jaffa buddy might not quite see the same humor in the situation that he did. He cleared his throat. “Heck of a shot for a teenager, don’t ya think?” Heck of a shot for anyone, Jack added to himself.
“The boy’s reaction indicates that he did indeed ‘hit that at which he aimed,’ O’Neill.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jack agreed.
“Although he is not repentant of his action, the child’s guardian seems most apologetic.”
Jack shrugged. “No matter where you go, kids will be kids.” He frowned. When they’re not being used as human encyclopedias and then shunted off into warehouses and forgotten, he ground his teeth at the thought. At least the kids on this planet were running around in the woods getting into trouble. Being kids. He tried to shake off unsettling memories of the brilliant little girl painting flowers among the other school children, wise beyond her years, and her blank eyes as he first saw her crouched against the stone wall back on her homeworld. He’d take a few scratches and temper tantrums over those empty stares any day.
The dark eyes of his teammate angled towards him for a moment. “Indeed. I sense no Goa’uld presence,” he added.
“Well, thank heaven for small favors,” Jack muttered. He squinted up into the brightening sky. “Looks like somebody up there might be on our side after all.”
Chapter 4
By the time they moved out into the weak sunlight and were ushered within the thick stone walls of Oscanna, the large town the UAV had picked up during its original flyover, Daniel’s sodden BDUs were all but steaming in the humid air. He tugged at the fabric stuck to his skin, silently envying the three natives who had thrown off cloaks that seemed to shed water like duck feathers to walk, comfortably dry, in intricately embroidered vests over fine linen shirts and breeches made from some sort of softened animal skin. The children—Soreen and Natua—who Daniel had learned were not Gavorre’s children as he’d first thought—had dropped their cloaks and run ahead as soon as the group passed the gates. Daniel watched them disappear ahead, the rich colors of their clothes swallowed up by adults who were quick to move out of their hurried path, the closest reaching down to take up discarded bows, quivers of brightly fletched arrows strewn without thought along the ground, as if this scene were nothing new, completely expected. He traded a few sentences with their guide who simply smiled and shrugged as if excusing the children’s behavior and yet apologizing for it at the same time. Daniel and Sam had shared a glance and walked on.
Beneath his cloak, Gavorre’s outfit was more sedate in browns and tans, and his vest seemed more a type of padded leather armor than a fashion statement—that coupled with the business-like sword hanging from one hip told Daniel that the man was more soldier, bodyguard perhaps, than companion. Other men in similar clothing had approached SG-1 and their escort first with suspicion, and then, as they stepped closer and examined the strangers, had each dropped the same kinds of strange bows and bobs of the head that Gavorre had greeted them with. Daniel had sensed Jack and Teal’c stiffen behind him, but the other guards seemed more interested in staring and exchanging whispered conversations with each other than in threatening the team.
The old man had been anxious to answer Daniel’s questions as they’d traveled through the forest, always keeping an eye on the teen-aged boy and young girl who strode ahead, backs stiffly turned on the four teammates as if refusing to acknowledge their existence, and shooting quick glances at Daniel and Sam, utterly unwilling to be coaxed into using their first names. ‘Nobelle’ and ‘Nobella’ he called them—Daniel assumed it was an honorific akin to ‘Lord’ or ‘Lady,’ but had no luck getting an explanation for the words’ use for himself and his teammate. Gavorre had been quick to offer his own name, though, his comments and body language clearly placing himself lower in rank—Daniel wondered about the combination of what looked like a strict caste system with the obvious Latin-based language and early Renaissance period clothing and weaponry.
The town—Oscanna—was the seat of government of a large farming region that apparently reached for miles in every direction. Daniel smiled at the pride reflected in Gavorre’s eyes as he described the beauty of his home, the nobility of its citizens, the worthiness of the Pretezze—a title that continued to defy Daniel’s translation but by inference must refer to the ruler or governor. It was by the Pretezze’s order that the path to the Stradina—Stargate—was carefully maintained even though no visitors had used the device within the old man’s memory.
“Please, Nobelle,” Gavorre reached out as if to take Daniel’s arm but aborted the motion at the last minute, simply bowing and gesturing towards a large structure at the other end of the open square before them. Daniel sighed and turned away from the fascinating sights in the large open courtyard—market booths selling everything from textiles to farm animals to jewelry—the quality of the merchandise rising as they proceeded towards their destination at the other end. He glanced over his shoulder at Jack for guidance and got only a blank expression and one shoulder raised in a shrug. Right. Meeting the leader. He looked up at the imposing façade of the structure before them. Looked like they were on the right track.
“Okay, somebody want to explain just what the hell this is?” Jack waved his arms at the large chamber, the bowing servants, and, more importantly, the clothes the smiling woman kept thrusting at him. “Daniel?”
At least his teammate had the good sense to look guilty. “Um, I think this my fault, Jack.”
“Well, I assumed as much,” the colonel shot back. “But how, exactly, is it your fault this time?” He rolled his eyes and patiently pushed the offered garments back towards the old woman who was his particular cross to bear at the moment. “Thanks, but I’m good, really,” he assured her for the third time.
Daniel had been enduring the same treatment from a twenty-something pretty boy with a few dots on his face who kept following him around the large room practically simpering to get the distracted archaeologist’s attention. “I might have mentioned to Gavorre how uncomfortable I… ah… we were and how, no, really, thank you,” he turned and smiled warmly at the guy who’d become attached to his left elbow before facing Jack again, “how good it would feel to get dried off and into dry clothes.”
Jack heard Sam’s quiet chuckle at his back and spun to fix his 2IC with a frigid stare.
“Is it really so bad, sir?” she asked, happily threading her fingers over the sleek, lavender fabric that a pleasant featured, dark-haired woman held out for her inspection. “I mean, if we’re going to meet their leader, maybe it would be better if our shoes didn’t squelch so loudly we couldn’t hear the discussion.”
The colonel shook his head and turned to the only other sane member of his team to find the tall Jaffa had already shed his vest and sodden BDU jacket and was being helped out of his black t-shirt by an eager older man. “Et tu, Teal’c?” he muttered.
A series of shocked gasps seemed to suspend all movement in the chamber. Jack looked down into the wide eyes of the small woman who had a death grip on the edge of his sleeve. “What?” He raised his eyes to Daniel’s. “What?”
“Um, that’s Latin, Jack, one of the precursors to the language spoken here by what I figure is the higher caste in this culture. I’m just guessing,” Jack watched the linguist turn an oh-so sincere smile on the woman who stood at Jack’s side, “but I think hearing it spoken by someone outside their caste system is considered, ah, scandalous.”
“The noble one speaks true,” the old woman clucked, and Jack felt a sharp smack on his arm.
“Hey!”
“You will change before you are brought before the Pretezze.” She thrust the clothes into his hands and he grabbed for them automatically. “And learn to hold your tongue among your betters. Have you had no schooling?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed at the sound of a stifled snort from the ‘noble one’s’ side of the room, but he kept his gaze riveted to the woman’s. “Thank you,” he pulled his lips back in a feral grin that reflected every ounce of his insincerity. “Daniel,” he growled.
“Um, thank you. Thank you very much but we can dress ourselves. If you wouldn’t mind…”
A few more assurances, some gestures, and a very firm refusal to a very determined and disappointed pretty boy and the team was finally left alone. Jack tugged on the wooden door to make sure it hadn’t been locked on them, only to find himself slamming it closed on the four eager faces turned in his direction from the hallway. He slumped against the sturdy wooden barrier wearily. “Well, that was fun.”
“They seem very… friendly, sir.” Carter was perched on the edge of a bench, head bent over the tangled laces of her boots hiding what Jack knew was a grin.
“Indeed. The people of this world are most welcoming.” Teal’c's t-shirt dropped to puddle on the stone floor with a loud thwack. Jack managed to control his grimace and slanted his gaze from the x-shape carved into his teammate’s abdomen to Daniel’s hands which had dipped into his vest pocket and were now polishing the lenses of his glasses on the edge of a cloth that covered a low, central table laden with food.
“Honestly, Jack, Gavorre said they’d dry out our clothes for us. I don’t think they mean anything threatening or insulting by it.” The archaeologist slipped his glasses onto his face and blinked at him. “They didn’t even question our weapons.”
“I noticed that, Daniel,” Jack commented, “which begs the question. Are they that trusting, or do they think our weapons aren’t much of a threat?”
“Or,” Carter toed off her boots and raised her head, “are our weapons so far beyond their experience that they don’t recognize the threat?”
“Well, they know knives,” Jack replied, crossing his arms over his chest. “Those kids each had a short knife on their belt, and Gavin—”
“Gavorre.”
“—was wearing a nice, shiny sword.” The guards in the courtyard were armed but hadn’t seemed threatening. Gavorre practically bowed and scraped at Daniel, and nothing about the servants raised the ‘red-alert’ hairs on the back of Jack’s neck. He noticed that three pairs of eyes had turned in his direction, waiting. “Okay. We’ll make nice, put on the fancy duds, and go and meet the wizard. But keep your sidearms,” he stared down the question in Daniel’s blue eyes, “they seem to respect personal protection here.” Jack’s eyebrows shot up as Daniel nodded. Huh. Would wonders never cease.
He nodded at the four inner doorways that branched off into private rooms. “Daniel, Carter—pick a room, check out the facilities, change. Teal’c and I will wait until you’re done. Then I want some answers.”
