"Okay Jack , I've got a hypothetical question..."
Yes Daniel , you're always full of questions. Now beat it , I'm trying to sleep.
I can still hear him standing there in the dark , metres away from my bunk , shifting from foot to foot. Didn't I just tell him to get lost?
Sheepishly I realise I'm still half asleep , and I haven't actually formed words yet. I've been in this kind of situation before , sleepy or not , talking is what I do best. Well , it's one of the things I do best , next to hockey , open firing , poker , and sex...oooh. Sex...
"Jack?"
Dammit , is he still here?
"D'niel. Go. Now."
See? I'm damn articulate. Now, where was I? Oh , yeah , sex...
"But I have a hypothetical question!"
"Don't care. L'me alone."
I snuggle closer into the pillow , mmmm. Soft. When did the SGC start buying fabric softener? Smells like summer meadows...
Anyways.Where was I?
Oh yes , sex ...summer meadows...mmmm...
"Okay , hypothetically speaking..."
Is he STILL here?!
I'm conscious of a load groan filling the room. The rumbling in the back of my throat suggests it came from me. Don't hold me to that , it could be coming from anywhere.
"...Just hypothetically speaking , Jack , if you were ....say ... an
archaeologist in the SGC , and...um...you were allowed to handle
weaponery..."
Okay , he's got my attention.
"...but say , in shooting practice you scored really low , and maybe...even shot yourself in the foot about four times when you trying to re-load. What would you say is the most powerful weapon you , as an
archaeologist , would be able to sign out of storage?"
I feel myself sitting up. God, it's cold in here.
"Hypothetically speaking?"
"Ummm...yah." He shifts back to his right foot.
"Because , Daniel. It sounds exactly like an incident that happened to you during evaluation week over two years ago. Y'know , the one where they decided you should never ever have a loaded weapon on base because , and I quote 'he's a f*****g timebomb'?"
Daniel goes silent. Sweet! Maybe he'll leave.
I'm beginning to wake up , wait - something occurs to me.
"Danny , what did you want a gun for?"
He shrugs. "Not just any gun. A a big one. Something scary. It doesn't even have to be loaded."
"That doesn't answer my question."
He sighs and hangs his head pathetically. Sometimes he's like an innocent puppy , that you just couldn't yell at , even if you really wanted to.
And other times , like this , he can be such a pain in the...
"I just wanted to scare someone."
Well.
That's damn immature. Damn stupid.
And I'm damn proud.
"Who?"
"Makepeace."
My little archaeologist's all grown up.
"Why?"
He shrugs again.
"He called me a geek."
"Daniel ,I call you a geek. I do it all the time. You geek."
I hear a snort coming from his silouette's general direction. His
shoulders make little heaving motions , and I know he's trying not to laugh.
"Yeah." He continues , "but you don't mean it."
Oh I don't , don't I?
"Oh I don't , don't I?"
"That's 'do I?', and Makepeace is different. He used the 'F' word and threw my KV55 chronicles through the wormhole to P3X 621."
He did WHAT?
To my geek?!
This means war.
"Gimme 2 minutes , Danny. Go back to work."
"But.."
"Go."
-----------------------------------------------------
It's been over an hour since I left my bunk in the safety of the top floor.
It's about 2 in the morning , but that's okay , because it's the top hunting hour for the villagers in Jack-city , and it just so happens to be Makepeace season. Here kitty , kitty.
Well well , speak of the devil.
Look at him , laughing drunkenly with his little space cadets.
"Hey - Makepeace? You got a sec?"
His stupid grin spreads wide, from ear to ear.
"Shire sur...I mean..*hiccup*..Sure sir.."br
He gives a drunken salute a bursts out laughing. I give a half hearted wave to his little buddies and , as the crowd disperses , I half-carry him into the nearest vacant office I can find.
-------------------------------------------------------
Danny's Journal. November 11th 1999
Dear Journal .
The weirdest thing happened. Makepeace apologised. Just turned up at my office and apologised. He even had a brand new copy of the KV55 chronicles for me , isn't that nice? To think I was planning to...um, well planning on pretending to shoot him.
I invited him in for some coffee but he shook his head. Poor guy , looked worse for wear. He stank of alcohol , but appeared to really have sobered up. I guess it makes sense that he would only do something nice when he was....incapacitated.
Something strange I also noticed about him , his neck was really bruised.
In fact , so was one of his eyes. And his arm was in a sling. Probably in a bar fight , me and Stephen got in plenty of those in our college days.
Well , maybe I'll get him a card or something.
Anyway , new news about that find on SG6's mission!....