Diplomacy (4/27)
Title: Diplomacy ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Chapter1a-- 1b Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4 Chapter5a-- 5b Chapter6 Chapter7 Chapter8 Chapter9 Chapter10 Chapter11a-- 11b Chapter12 Chapter13a-- 13b Chapter14a-- 14b Chapter15a-- 15b Chapter16 Chapter17a-- 17b Chapter18 Chapter19 Chapter20 Chapter21 Chapter22 Chapter23 Chapter24 Chapter25 Chapter26 Epilogue
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Rules
XXXXX
8 July 1998; SGC, Earth; 1500 hrs
Jack stepped into the archaeology office, idly picking up a statuette of a skinny woman with inhuman proportions as he passed a shelf. "What are you up to?" he asked as he turned the thing over in his hands to examine it. Where did they get this stuff? "And where do you get this stuff?" he said. "I don't remember hearing about aliens with really long necks."
Rolling his eyes, Daniel looked up from his work. "That's from P48-564, and it's not supposed to be an accurate representation of a human. It's either decorative or some kind of votive figurine and"--Daniel reached out and deftly grabbed the wooden statuette from his hands to replace it carefully on the shelf--"stop playing with it, Jack. It's really old, and the oils in our hands--"
"Well, why do you guys have it sitting out, then?"
"Because we don't keep touching it all the time. SG-9 brought it back as a gift to the SGC, and if we're going to be continuing relations with the people, we shouldn't just pack away things that could tell us about their culture and what kind of society--"
"Aht!" Jack stopped him before it was too late. "Daniel, it's a...wooden statue of a long-necked woman."
"Oh, it's actually very interesting," Daniel told him, picking the damn thing up again, though he used a cloth to do it. "Look, see, the style is similar to that of artwork from ancient Greek civilizations on Earth, but you can see that it's not at all--see, here, look, Jack, look at how they did this, there's a--"
"It's a wood statue, Daniel," Jack repeated, not knowing what in the world he was supposed to be seeing, "and it has a long neck."
Daniel drooped a little. "It's really interesting," he said feebly.
"I'm...sure it is," Jack offered, feeling kind of bad now. "It's just not my thing. That's why you guys get paid the big bucks." A thought struck Jack as Daniel replaced the statue again. "Wait, are you getting paid now?" He was fairly certain he should have known about that, but...
An indifferent shrug answered him. "I wouldn't know what to do with it. I'm already getting room and--" he hesitated. "Uh..."
"Board," Rothman supplied, not looking up.
"I'm getting room and board on base, any reference materials we need are paid for by the department's funding, and there's even an allowance for my academic things, like textbooks--"
"That's it?" Jack asked. He wondered what currency they used on Abydos. Based on what they'd seen on Goa'uld planets so far, the most important currency on Abydos for over five thousand years had been Ra's favor, but there had to be something for day-to-day business in the human population. Maybe they had some kind of barter system, and Daniel saw it as a trade of his translations for things like a bed and food. "Daniel, a lot of personnel have rooms on base; yours is a little more frequently used is all. I'll talk to Hammond--"
"No, you didn't let me finish," Daniel interrupted him. "It will be easier for General Hammond to do everything if I'm officially a representative from Abydos, and that can't be official until I go back to Abydos and ask Kasuf." He hesitated, then went on. "Once that happens, they can create records for me as a citizen of Earth, and I'll actually have enough of an identity to be considered a...uh, an assistant researcher in the department."
Jack raised his eyebrows. "Assistant?"
"Until I pass the GEDs," he said, wrinkling his nose in Rothman's direction. Rothman didn't seem to notice. "Anyway, I just do what Robert says to do, same as before."
"Yeah, but seriously, Daniel--"
"I just want to stay and help," Daniel interrupted. "It's the same for Teal'c. The SGC pays for what we need, and for both of us...well, if we get to the end of this war, or our peoples' situation changes, you know..."
"You'll go back," Jack said neutrally.
"Well, I don't...really know. That's the point. Do you think Teal'c won't go to help his people when the Jaffa are freed?"
Jack looked at Rothman, who shrugged. No doubt they'd talked about this up here, already. "All right. Well, then, have you two decided how you're going to run this off-world stuff?"
"Some of it will depend on who is more likely to be useful for the specific mission," Daniel said, glancing once at Rothman. "For training missions with SG-1 or -2, we're planning to alternate whenever something comes up. Outside of that, Robert has to handle the administrative business, too, and he's more experienced with in-depth analysis, so if it's a basic survey with another team, he'll stay on base, and I'll go and collect data and bring it back here for study."
"You sure you can handle that?" Jack said.
"We're both approved for research and peaceful negotiations," Daniel said, a little defensively. "I can handle it."
"Basically, Colonel," Rothman clarified, finally looking up from whatever he was doing, "Daniel will take more of the smaller off-world missions, and while he's on base, he'll be on call for emergencies or unexpected situations where we need him."
"Like the Nasya situation," Daniel said.
"Yeah, like that. I figure that'll keep him busy enough, so for the most part, so I'm not assigning him active, long-term research projects or other SGC busywork when he's on Earth."
"Ah," Jack said. "Frees up time for homework?"
"Yes," Daniel said, frowning. "Sam gives me math and physics assignments when she's bored, too, did you know that?"
"It's hard?" Jack guessed.
"It's Sam," he grumped.
Jack shrugged sympathetically.
"Anyway, as soon as I finish what I need to know to pass that test, I can concentrate on SGC work and training." Turning to Rothman, he added, "I still don't see why you want me to take a test so badly."
Rothman rolled his eyes, and Jack suspected they'd had the conversation many times before. "You'll be glad I did if you decide in a few years that you want formal education."
"Actually," Jack cut in when Daniel opened his mouth to respond, "Daniel, can you leave that stuff for an hour or so?"
"Now?" he asked, frowning. His eyes flicked toward the clock on the wall.
Jack walked past Rothman and stopped in front of Daniel's desk. "What are you so busy with now?"
"Well..." he answered, pointing at the textbook open on his desk.
"Is that a map of the US?" Jack said.
"I was trying to get some idea of..." He gestured toward the page with the map printed on it and thumbed idly through the following pages. "And then I'm meeting with Teal'c in the gym, and then for Goa'uld practice later this evening. I want to at least have some idea of where we live--oh, Jack, guess what?"
Jack raised his eyebrows. "What?"
Daniel flashed a quick smile. "Did you know there are two-hundred and fifty million people in this country?"
"That book's a few years out of date," Rothman told him. "We're closing in on three-hundred million, and about six billion on Earth."
Daniel's eyes widened. "That's... really?"
"Really," Rothman said, amused.
"That's amazing; this state alone has about four million people--that's...that's more than there are on all of Abydos, probably. Maybe. I guess no one ever counted." Daniel sighed happily. Disgruntled though he might be about having to take an equivalence test to prove whatever it was supposed to prove, Jack suspected he was perfectly happy reading and learning the material. "You know...maybe that's because this is the first world of humans, but Jack...do you know how much culture and history must have been left by so many people over so many years?"
"I hope that's a rhetorical question, kid," Jack said.
"Well, yes, of course, that's not exactly something that can be quantified, but it's a lot to take in." He blinked up at Jack.
"Daniel," Rothman said patiently, "the colonel asked you a question."
"Oh, uh, sorry," Daniel said, pulling off his glasses. "What did you say?"
Judging by how easily Daniel soaked up things like Stargate coordinates and planet designations--and the populations of states, apparently--Jack thought he could assume the map was pretty well memorized by now. "Teal'c's helping the training instructor with a few newbies, so he said I could have you instead of your normal session with him," he said. "When were you going to meet with him? I just need an hour or so."
"An hour for what?"
"Ah..." Jack scratched his head. "I want you to have a few firearms safety lessons before you step off-world again."
This would have been easier if he weren't staring down at Daniel's homework, of all things. Training a member of his team or a civilian consultant was one thing; training someone who was just now learning the capital of Colorado was another. Okay, so Teal'c probably hadn't known the capital of Colorado for a while, either, but that was different, and he had a gold tattoo melted into his skin to prove it.
He'd separate the two, that was all--Daniel the geeky kid at home; Mr. Jackson the Abydos liaison and language expert during training. He counted Carter as a friend off-duty and as a teammate and subordinate in the field, and they didn't have any problems with that. He'd just have to learn to do the same with Daniel. Simple. Right.
Besides, Jack had learned already that not knowing how to fire a weapon wouldn't save a child from being shot anyway.
He carefully pushed that thought aside, too.
Daniel's head was tilted thoughtfully, and Jack was relieved to see he at least wasn't too excited about it. People too eager to play with weapons often ended up too careless. "Major Ferretti said I wasn't allowed to take firearms off-world," he said.
"When you start going off-world, you're still not going to carry the same weapons that we do," Jack informed him. "You will be around them a lot more, though, so you need to understand basic safety and how they work. Teal'c and I will decide what you're allowed to carry off-world." When he saw Daniel's lips twitch in not-quite-concealed distaste, he reminded, "It's for your own protection."
"No, I know," Daniel said quickly. "I'm sorry. I'll do whatever it takes."
"This has nothing to do with trust in you as a person," Jack said, and it was true--even now, he had as much faith in Daniel's good intentions as he did in just about anyone's. That didn't mean he was willing to stake people's lives on Daniel's aim or his ability to assess a situation, not yet. "But you'll be around us and possibly other friendlies, too. Think about that."
There were two surefire ways to make a person care about safety: make him fear for his own, or make him fear for his friends'. With Daniel, Jack was willing to do both.
"I wouldn't trust my shooting, either," Daniel agreed, not seeming at all offended. "I don't want to hit someone by accident."
"Or yourself," Jack couldn't stop himself from adding.
"Okay," Daniel said, taking a last look at his book and standing up. "I was going to go meet Teal'c soon, anyway. Robert, do you mind--"
Rothman waved at him. "Go. Just make sure you finish chapter twelve before the end of the day tomorrow. And, Daniel--listen to Colonel O'Neill for this, I mean it. I need you without a hole blown through you."
Daniel shot his mentor an odd look, while Jack suppressed a flinch and said flippantly, "What do you mean, 'for this?' If I could get him to listen to me all the time..."
"You would get bored," Daniel assured him, leading the way out of the office.
Jack nodded to the archaeologist, then strode forward to catch up with Daniel. "Okay. A few rules..."
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8 July 1998; SGC, Earth; 1530 hrs
"First rule," Jack said. "The gun is loaded."
Daniel looked around the empty SG-1 ready-room a little nervously, though he knew the only weapon here was the pistol Jack had brought from the armory. Still, he argued, "No, it's not. I just watched you unload it."
Jack gave him a Look.
"Oh. You mean I should act like every gun is loaded."
"It's not just pretend," Jack warned him. "That's your default assumption. When we go off-world, we can't take the time to load our weapons if we come under fire, so most of the time, every gun around you will be ready to fire."
"I'm not going to go around playing with people's guns."
"And if we find a society with similar weapons to ours? Or if one of ours is dropped for some reason and you pick it up?"
"Assume it's loaded," Daniel said obediently. "Tell an officer. If necessary, unload it completely and do not try to use it."
Jack nodded. "Unless--"
"Unless there's an emergency." Always, always, 'unless there's an emergency.' The problem was that there was always an emergency around here, or some unexpected situation that didn't fall within their protocols; that was the whole purpose of the SGC. "And then only for defense."
"Yeah. Were you watching me when I showed you how to check--"
"Remove the magazine," Daniel answered, a little impatiently, brushing his fingers against the pistol's grip where Jack had shown him before and then inching upward on the pistol. "Then check the chamber to see if it's empty. Yes, I was watching."
A hand clamped tightly over his wrist, making him look up into Jack's hard expression. "This isn't a game, Daniel."
"I know," he said again, trying to hide some exasperation. "I've been paying attention."
"I don't care. You never stop being careful," Jack ordered, his voice becoming harsh. "Accidents happen."
Daniel understood--really, he did. Weapons weren't something to play around with. His parents had never let him pick up any of the ones left behind from the Rebellion. Even Skaara, who had handed him a knife and dared to take him hunting against their parents' wishes and who surely knew very little about the Tau'ri weapons himself, had forbidden Daniel to use firearms.
But considering what they saw around the SGC every day, he would have expected Jack to be more concerned about other things, like the fact that he sometimes strolled casually through the biohazard-rated labs without knowing a thing about the biohazards within, even though there was a small chance something could breach containment by accident. Like the fact that he regularly helped Robert study artifacts with unknown properties and devices with unknown functions, even though any of them could be dangerous. Besides, any weapon in a skilled person's hands could be deadly, be it a dagger or staff or zat'nik'tel.
He opened his mouth to say just that, but then, he caught a glimpse of the stark terror that in Jack's eyes. Whether or not they were the most dangerous things around here, Jack's extreme unease about Tau'ri firearms despite his own easy use of them was...different. Intensely personal somehow, in the way nothing was to Jack except his team and his family, and suddenly Daniel remembered learning that Jack's Charlie had died in an accident. Jack had never offered details, and Daniel knew better than to ask.
Daniel focused on that odd gleam of dread and forced himself not to pull away from the grip around his arm. "Yes, sir," he said seriously. "I understand. I wouldn't risk anyone's life by being thoughtless."
Jack seemed taken aback by the address but nodded once, the fear in his eyes dying down and sharpening to the brisk attentiveness that accompanied his commander's voice. "Good." He released Daniel and picked up the handgun, an empty magazine in the other. "Watch again."
This time, Daniel paid closer attention to Jack's smooth movements as he loaded, then unloaded the gun and loaded it one more time before replacing it on the table.
"Your turn. Pick it up, in your right hand." Jack waited until he obeyed, carefully pointing the gun toward the ground. "First, find the--no, Daniel, the safety, always check the safety first. A lot of us keep our sidearms holstered for optimal response time."
A lot of people left the safeties off, he meant. Daniel flicked the latch on the slide off, then clicked it securely back on again. "Okay."
"Now you can eject the--good. Put it down. Slide out the action. No rounds in the chamber, so slide it closed again. Okay?"
"Okay."
"You remember how I loaded it?"
"Yes."
"Do it."
By the time Jack was satisfied with his ability to load, unload, strip, and reassemble, the pistol--a Beretta, Jack said it was called--was starting to feel...not comfortable, perhaps, but less alien in Daniel's hand. It wasn't that complicated, really, until he remembered that he could use this thing in his hand to kill people with just a twitch of his finger, and then a chill ran through him.
He could barely remember the feeling of an Abydonian reed pen in his fingers, or the texture of hand-pressed papyrus scrolls, and he wondered what his parents would have said if they could see him now, learning to hold and manipulate a weapon of war. Or what they would have said about the calluses forming on his hands from holding a bashaak training staff accompanying the smaller ones on his fingers from holding a pen.
"Something wrong?" Jack said quietly.
"No," he denied, not meeting Jack's eyes. He cleared his throat and raised his head. "Okay. Again?"
Jack's sharp gaze said he wasn't fooled, but he didn't comment, either. "Leave it for now. From now on, every time you pick up one of these--whether you're learning about maintenance, or anything else--you'll want to check and make sure you know what you're holding. Things like this need to become second nature."
What will it mean when this is second nature? "Okay," Daniel said again, putting the gun uneasily back down on the table.
"Daniel," Jack said, then waited until he looked up. "I'm not telling you to go around shooting people. You should be trying to avoid situations when you'd need to. But you're in a dangerous line of work, you know that, and if you know how to use the weapons around you, there'll be less of a chance that someone'll get hurt needlessly."
"I know." He did. He knew it. He would just need to remind himself until he believed it.
"All right," Jack said. "Next rule. Never point your gun at something you're not willing to kill."
"Mm-hm," Daniel said, and had to resist to urge to take a step back.
"If you're not specifically trying to hit something," Jack went on, "know exactly where it's pointing so you don't accidentally shoot someone in the foot. And always know whether or not the safety's on. Pick up the gun."
Daniel reached for the pistol and automatically ejected the magazine into his hand, then stopped, embarrassed. "Sorry."
"Second nature doesn't mean without thinking, Jackson," Jack said sharply. "You open it up to see what's in it, not because it's muscle memory. Load it back up."
Daniel inserted the empty magazine again, holding the pistol awkwardly in his hand.
"Show me your grip. No," Jack said immediately. "You'll lose your grip if you fire it like that. And use both hands. Look at the angles in your arms--the more force you let your bones take, the less you have to strain your muscles. Here..."
He let Jack steer him so that he was facing a blank concrete wall and adjust his fingers around the pistol and his feet on the ground.
"That feel comfortable?" Jack asked when he was aiming the empty gun toward the wall.
"Uh. Yes."
"Sure?"
"No," Daniel admitted.
"Hold it. You know what recoil feels like?" Jack asked. Then, while Daniel was turning the word 'recoil' over in his mind, without warning, Jack hit his finger hard against the bottom of the barrel. The gun jerked upward in Daniel's hands, making him start. He brought it quickly back into line and realigned his fingers.
"See, right there," Jack said. "If you feel like it's jumping out of your hands and need to readjust, you need to change something about how you're holding it. Squeeze too tight and you'll get tired; hold it at the wrong angle, and you'll drop it. You'll figure it out if you practice enough."
"It always does that when you fire?" Daniel asked, lowering his hands. "Jumps?"
Jack looked a little surprised, but said, "Something like that. That's what we mean when we say 'recoil.'"
"Why?"
"Why?" Jack repeated.
Daniel thought of a snake stretching itself to its full length and then coiling back on itself again and couldn't imagine what that had to do with a gun trying to leap out of his hands. "Yes--why?"
Jack seemed to think he was asking about the mechanism, though, rather than the etymology, and answered, "It's...well, when something gets spat out in one direction, something else has to get thrown back the other way. Ah..."
"Equal and opposite reaction." There were archers on Abydos, and a bow snapped back when the arrow left its string. It was one of those simple physics concepts that made common sense, and he supposed a bullet would cause more recoil because it was so much faster than an arrow.
"Yeah, that's right. That's how it works," Jack confirmed. "You can get a pretty good kick when you fire. That's one reason why it's so important to know how to hold the gun and how to stand, so you're braced against the recoil. I want you to know how it feels to fire a gun, so it doesn't surprise you if you find yourself having to use a weapon off-world."
Daniel tried not to think of the kinds of situations that would require him to use someone else's gun and commented instead, "I don't remember feeling that from the zat'nik'tel."
"Yeah, me neither," Jack admitted. "You'd have to ask Carter about how Goa'uld energy weapons work. But projectile weapons, like this here--trust me. It'll take some practice."
Despite living in such proximity to so much Tau'ri weaponry, he had only actually seen a gun fired on three occasions: the last night on Abydos, when Skaara, his Guardsmen, and the Tau'ri soldiers had fired upon Apophis; the escape from Chulak; and the night when they'd snuck onto Klorel's hatak. "Should I practice, then?" he asked.
"With someone watching," Jack said. "Ah...sometime, I'll take you to the range so you get a feel for it and how to use it if you have to. But anytime you could be in danger, your first job is to try to get yourself somewhere so you don't have to use it."
"Okay."
"Now, look at your hands. See where your pointer finger is, on the trigger? Third rule: your finger stays out of the trigger guard unless you have your target in your sights and you're ready to start shooting. You don't want to squeeze the trigger by accident."
Daniel quickly readjusted. "Then what do I do with..."
"Leave your finger against the frame," Jack instructed, coming around behind him. He braced one hand on Daniel's shoulder and wrapped the other loosely around Daniel's grip on the gun, tapping the place to demonstrate. "From here, it's easy to slip into the trigger guard, and it stays out of the way." He stepped back. "Fourth rule. What happens if I'm aiming over there?"
Daniel dropped his hands again and looked in the direction Jack indicated, where he stood as if holding an imaginary pistol. "You'll hit the door?" he answered. "And whoever's on the other side, maybe," he added, not knowing how strong these projectiles were. Sometimes they even went through metal--he'd seen that for himself, and Teal'c had shown him the weak points in Jaffa armor.
"Yeah," Jack said sternly. "That's the point. Make sure you know what your target is, but always make sure you know what's behind it, too, and around it. Sometimes a bullet can penetrate and keep going straight through. Or someone could open that door and try to come in. If you're in the field, you could miss and hit someone behind or to the side of your target. You don't fire without knowing exactly what could be out there, is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Tell me those rules again."
Daniel tilted his head and thought back. "Uh...first, every gun is loaded..."
When he could repeat and explain them all without faltering, Jack stopped him. "That's all we're going to do for now; put it down. Next time, I'll go over the other weapons you'll be seeing most often, show you how they work. Each one is a little different. Some don't have an external safety; some have different trigger actions; some have levers and catches on different sides of the weapon. You need to be able to recognize or adapt to anything you might end up holding. I'll take you to the range to get a little practice in with one of the zats, maybe get an idea of what pistol fire feels like. If I think you'll need a range weapon off-world, you'll bring a zat."
"Why--oh, because the first shot won't kill, of course. That makes sense." The first shot was fatal only to very small beings, Teal'c had said. And to infant humans, sometimes, although healthy Jaffa children would survive the first hit. Daniel very carefully hadn't asked how Teal'c knew either of those facts.
"Exactly," Jack said. "I don't need you to achieve sharpshooter proficiency, but you have to at least know what to expect when you squeeze the trigger. And next time we're at home, remind me to show you where I keep my personal gun, too."
"I didn't know you had one in your house," Daniel remarked, laying the pistol back down on the table.
It was several seconds before Jack answered, and when he did, the words were brisk. "Well, you should know. It's in my room, so you've just never seen it."
"Oh. I wouldn't go into your room, Jack."
"If you're gonna be staying with me, you need to know where stuff like that is. It's an accident waiting to happen otherwise, the way you prowl around when you're bored."
Daniel opened his mouth to say indignantly that he wouldn't prowl into Jack's personal things, but then he thought about those words again and decided to shut up. Maybe it was an accident waiting to happen, and maybe it was an accident that already had.
"Jack," he asked, "did...I mean..." He hesitated another moment, then said, "Never mind." There was a time for questions, but, like Teal'c had told him more than once, there was a time for silence, too.
Jack heard it anyway. "My son died because he didn't know, Daniel," he said flatly, gathering everything together efficiently. "So don't fool around."
Daniel swallowed. "Yes, sir." Jack gave him another odd look, and Daniel realized that, if he wasn't used to Jack acting like his commander even in small ways, Jack probably wasn't used it, either. He dropped his gaze first, not sure whether he was excited to know he was slowly finding his way into the SGC chain of command or disturbed that his friends were increasingly becoming his superiors and co-workers.
"Anyway," Jack said, motioning him out of the room, "from now on, when we're all on base, you'll spend about a session each week participating in drills with SG-1 or -2, or with me, until you get an idea of how to communicate with the group and what to do with the standard weapons."
"What if you and Major Ferretti are both off-world?"
"Then you're Dr. Rothman's."
Daniel nodded. "Once a week, then?" It didn't seem like very much, really.
"For now, yeah," Jack said. "Those will be the sessions you're required to attend--I'll make sure you know who to report to those days--but if you want to keep going the way you have been with Teal'c, or me and Carter, that's fine, too. You can observe our drills if you have extra time, and if another commander okays it, you can observe other teams, too. Just remember your first priorities are whatever Dr. Rothman assigns you. If you start falling behind there, we'll cut back on these training sessions."
"I understand," Daniel said again, already trying to decide how much time that left. Really, it was only a few hours a week different from what he'd been doing already.
"All right. Final rules," Jack said. "You can't check anything out of the armory on your own, anyway, but don't even try without me or Teal'c. Or Carter, if she wants, but she has duties in the lab--don't bother her if she's busy."
"Okay," he said as Jack returned the Beretta to the armory and walked him back to the archaeology office. "I've been wondering about how this would work. I don't want to be useless or defenseless when I go off-world, but Major Ferretti already told me it's against the law for a fourteen-year-old to carry a gun without special permission. Is that right?"
"Fifteen," Jack said, stepping into the elevator.
"What?"
"I said, you're not fourteen anymore. It's July 8th--that's your birthday on Earth, remember? You're fifteen now."
"Yeah?" Daniel said. "That's good to know." Jack gave him a sideways look but didn't comment.
It seemed like such an arbitrary thing to keep track of, but he supposed it made at least as much sense as marking his age by the solstices. It was still strange to him that every person reached majority or gained age rights at a different day during the year, rather than moving up in responsibilities with the rest of the age set. Of course, there were no defined age sets on Earth.
"I'm still not used to the way people here take notice of days like birthdays one by one, rather than as a group," he commented, relaxing when he had decided that, once they were moving away from the armory, it was 'Jack' again, not 'Colonel O'Neill' or 'sir.'
"Really," Jack said.
"A lot of things here are like that," he explained. "Robert says my perspective is skewed, though, because I've only observed a small subset of Tau'ri culture--of American culture, even, because apparently, the military is a specialized society in itself."
"That's...probably true."
"It's just taken me a long time to get an idea of how SG teams work. It's really very strange to try to figure it out."
"Daniel..."
"No, no, I mean, it's difficult to understand the...you know, the etiquette around here. You can see it most obviously in the way people use first or last names and titles, which is very different around the teams or the civilian researchers, and it's one of the customs that took me a really long time to--"
"Daniel, would you just...take a breath, kid."
Daniel stopped and took a breath. "What?"
Jack stared at him for a second, then rolled his eyes and wordlessly prodded him toward the closed door of the archaeology office.
"Why is the door closed?" Daniel wondered aloud, reaching for his ID, because he and Robert usually left both doors open unless the office was empty. But apparently the door wasn't completely closed after all, because Jack reached past him and pushed it open without needing to swipe or unlock anything.
Which was why Daniel froze with a hand deep in his pocket when several voices called from inside, "Happy birthday!"
"Uh," he said.
"Hi, Daniel!" Cassandra said, waving at him from where she was perched on a somewhat annoyed-looking Robert's desk. "Earth people have this song, and it's really, really funny when Sam sings it. Sam, sing it again," she insisted.
Sam flushed a little and glared at Janet when the doctor disguised a laugh as a cough. "Nuh-uh. Sorry, Daniel," she added to him. "If you want someone to sing you Happy Birthday, Janet can do it. I'm not singing again in public." Teal'c raised an eyebrow and even the general chuckled from where he stood behind Daniel's desk. Robert didn't notice; he seemed to be reading over some report from behind Cassandra.
"Uh," Daniel repeated. Jack snorted and pushed him inside. He stumbled a little and spared a scowl for the man before looking around at the congregation again. "I don't understand."
"It's not that complicated. The anniversary of your birth. And we're celebrating Cassie's, too," Jack added, "since hers is in four days."
"They do this at school, too, so I'm used to it," she told him. "I'm twelve."
"I'm fifteen," he answered automatically, then, "What?"
Smiling, General Hammond told him, "We just wanted to recognize you and Cassandra's first birthday on this planet, son."
"You know four different stories of the origin of Christmas trees, but you've never heard of a birthday party?" Jack asked incredulously.
"Well, no," he started. "I mean, I've heard of...kind of..."
"What's the origin of Christmas trees?" Cassie asked, sliding from her perch.
"Um," Daniel stalled, half of his mind working through 'birthday' while the rest tried to decide which story was most likely to be closest to the true story of the Christmas tree.
"We have to work on that eloquence thing, geek," Robert said, looking up briefly and revealing that he was paying attention, after all.
"No, we don't," Jack said fervently.
Daniel was still a little bewildered--what was the protocol for occasions like this, anyway?--and in the end, Teal'c stepped forward. "I wish you a happy birthday, Daniel Jackson," the Jaffa said, a rare, warm smile on his lips. "Haru raishen hano'khanmisew." Daniel couldn't help smiling back.
"What? What did you say?" Jack asked, looking between the two of them as if suspicious they might be sharing a joke.
"A day..." Robert started, frowning in concentration, "to be happy...with, uh..."
"With friends," Daniel finished, looking around the office. "He said, 'it's a day to be happy with friends.'"
"Ah, yes," Jack said, gesturing vaguely with an arm. "Happiness and friendliness. It's a rule we have about birthdays."
"Like the rule about kids having dogs?" Cassie put in, wearing a canny look that said she knew exactly how real that rule was.
"That was you, Colonel?" Janet said. "I should have known."
"Yes," Jack answered both of them, unembarrassed.
Cassie looked up at her mother as Sam gave her a one-armed hug and gestured at Daniel with the other.
"Come on! You're blocking the door."
"Yes, you might disrupt the normally heavy traffic in and out of the archaeology office," Robert remarked dryly.
Jack's arm nudged Daniel, and he stepped fully into the office. "Well...thank you," he said, hoping that was the right sentiment. "And, uh... Happy birthday, Cassie."
"See?" Sam teased. "Our customs aren't so hard."
Another round of 'happy birthday' calls to both of them circulated throughout the room.
"May you defeat many foes," Teal'c added.
"Ah, yeah," Jack said with a wince. "We'll work on those customs. Now, there's pie waiting in the commissary. Who's in?"
From the next chapter (" Son"):
"Chevron seven--locked," Sergeant Harriman announced. "Wormhole to Abydos established."