Mess hall. Mess hall. Mess hall.

Daniel repeated this to himself over and over again as he strode down the SGC hallways, until he had reached his destination. Then he started internally chanting the reason for this early-morning trip: Coffee. Coffee. Coffee.

Once two mugs of coffee were safely cradled in his hands, one already half finished, he managed to bring himself to look up. Jack was sitting at one of the tables in the corner, facing the door like most of the military personnel preferred to do. Shrugging to himself, he headed over to his friend, still thinking 'Coffee, coffee, coffee', just because the word made him happy.

As he slid into a seat, he noticed that Jack was eating something that looked like it might be, just might be, oatmeal. Daniel squinted dubiously.

"Hey, Danny boy," Jack said, around a mouthful of the could-be-oatmeal. Daniel was having second thoughts about that: Jack had been working on the same mouthful since he'd spotted him, and surely even Air-Force porridge wasn't that chewy.

"Hey, Jack. What're you doing here so early?"

"Eating." Jack stopped chewing long enough to look down at his food. "That is... Ingesting something that someone, somewhere, apparently thinks is food." Satisfied with the description, he resumed chewing. And chewing. And chewing.

Daniel watched in fascination for a few seconds before clearing his throat. "What... Uh, what is it?"

Jack shrugged. "Something more substantial than two mugs of coffee," he said, looking pointedly at Daniel's 'breakfast'. "I think it's made of cardboard and old shoes."

Mm, Daniel thought happily, Coffee. "So. What's on the schedule for today?"

Chew, chew, chew. "P3Y-229, or something. Another first contact, God help us." Chew, chew, chew. "With luck, these guys won't try and kill us."

For a moment it looked like Jack was going to swallow, and Daniel found himself leaning forward expectantly. He was disappointed, however. The chewing went on. "Oh, yeah. The briefing's at ten, right? I hear the MALP showed promising signs of... of..." He trailed off. His higher brain function had been hijacked by the need to think of as many synonyms for the word "chew" as he could. Masticate. Ruminate. Munch? Gnaw? Were those acceptable, given the context?

"Daniel?"

"Champ. Uh, I mean, what?"

"Promising signs of..." Jack prompted. Chew, chew, chew.

"Oh, you know... People... I think I heard something about trinium..."

"Yeah. You okay there, Danny?"

"Oh, sure, yes."

"Okay."

"Jack?"

"Yes?"

"Aren't you going to, you know, swallow that?"

Jack stared at him with open disbelief. "Are you crazy, Daniel? This stuff could kill me!"

"...Oh." Daniel shrugged, and forcibly turned his thoughts to a more pleasing subject. Ah, coffee. Time for a refill.