Stupid Questions

I've always known them fight, boy do they fight. Of course they'd never call it that. They disagree, sure, argue – maybe but I'm pretty sure that they'd always deny fighting. I'd always assumed though that it was an "in-team" thing, something they did on missions to pass the time. I hadn't realised just how much everyone else had noticed until I overheard an airman remark seriously that he thought the Colonel was going to kill his archaeologist during their latest spat. It's funny, he was talking about what would essentially be the breaking of SG-1 and yet Daniel is still referred to as the Colonel's geek, as though to think of him working for anyone else is abhorrent.

But anyway, after I heard this apparently serious rumour I found myself listening to base scuttlebutt to see what the general consensus was about the status of my teammates; not easy when my presence immediately brought a halt to any conversation. I wasn't worried exactly, but I'd thought that if anything SG-1 were a stronger team than we'd ever been. I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Eventually though, I was saved from covert eavesdropping in the commissary when Janet sought me out, appearing in my lab with a cup of coffee and a worried expression.

"Sam is it true?" she asked, absentmindedly chewing on a nail.

"Is what true?" I queried, my attention split between her and the faulty component on the naquadah reactor currently occupying my desk.

"That Colonel O'Neill wants Daniel off SG-1?"

Ah. So that was the current rumour that had the base all of a flutter. I thought back to our last mission. Daniel and the Colonel had seemed ok last night, in fact I'm pretty sure they went to O'Malley's after work, the Colonel mumbling something about beer. I glanced at my watch. Probably why I haven't seen either of them yet.

"Not as far as I know," I told her, "I can't see any reason he would." I tweaked the yellow wire in front of me, grinning in satisfaction when a previously stubbornly unlit LED turned on to glow emerald green.

Janet took a deep drag of her coffee and looked around to ascertain the risk of being overhead.

"Gossip at the Nurses' Station is that they've been seen arguing all over base." She raised her eyebrows.

"About?" I asked, unable to think of anything recent that would have sparked days of acrimonious rowing. In fact...

"No one knows, apparently quite heated though."

I couldn't help the small laugh that escaped me.

"Daniel and Jack arguing? I think I'd be more worried if they weren't."

"Oh?" she asked in that way that made one syllable sound like an inquisition.

"Yeah, if they start giving each other the silent treatment then I get really worried," it was only when I was asked directly about it that I realised that the whole base had the wrong end of the stick. I sought for the best way to explain my teammates – somewhat complex – relationship.

"They're both quite... different," Janet scoffed at my understatement, but I persevered, "I think when we started out they were treading on eggshells for the sake of each other. Now though they know each other a bit better they are more confident to disagree with each other. It doesn't mean... It's not a bad thing. They respect each other enough to agree to disagree. Mostly."

Janet nodded thoughtfully, just as the sound of raised voices echoed down the corridor. I rolled me eyes in frustration, it was almost like they wanted to bely my point.

"And I'm telling you Jack, you're wrong."

"Dammit Daniel, I'm not wrong. No one in their right mind would agree with you!"

I winced then. Daniel doesn't always take kindly to references to his mental health, but his retort sounded almost cheerful.

"I might not be in my right mind, but at least I'm not such an ass that I can't see the truth when it's right in front of me."

"Daniel..." Colonel O'Neill growled.

Oh boy. This one had been going on for a while then. Janet looked like she was resisting the urge to say I told you so, and contented herself with waving an accusing hand in their direction.

"Jack..."

"Daniel...There's only one way to settle this." A nugget of dread lodged itself in my stomach.

"Oh?"

"Carter will know."

That's what I had been afraid of. Two irate faces appeared at the door.

"Carter!"

"Sir?" I asked, sounding apprehensive, even to my own ears.

"Can you settle something for us?" Daniel was more polite, his blue eyes apologetic.

"Um, I'll try..." I hazed. This was not a position I relished, however solid I professed their friendship and our team to be. Not because I am worried about causing them to fall out, or splitting the team or anything dreadful like that. It's more because...

"Who's cooler? Indiana Jones or Han Solo?"

... it's always such stupid questions.