~Meatballs, Hippos, and Headaches~

There was a time, and it wasn't that long ago either, I used to joke about the care and feeding of SG-1's archaeologist. Well, to be blunt, it's no laughing matter anymore. This kid is a nightmare. How he ever got through his toddler years the first time around simply astounds me. Daniel Jackson – holder of multiple PhD's – is glowering at me from the kitchen bench with the latest Ikea catalogue clutched firmly to his chest.

"But, Jack-"

"Aht!" Up goes my finger, a sure fire way of putting and end to any attempts at currying favor with my better nature. Not going to work, buster!

"The have a section of gifts under ten dollars," he sing-songs at me while thumbing the pages of 'his' bible. This kid's fascination with all things Ikea has got me a little baffled. As an adult, Daniel Jackson preferred his furniture to match his eclectic tastes for everything old. And before anyone waggles their eye-brows in my direction – I am not old! I had a fine head of brown hair until I met Daniel.

Now, where was I?

"Jack?"

"Yep?"

"Ten dollars?"

Oh… that's right. "Really?" I try not to act interested, but truth be told, with the Christmas list Daniel presented me with, I'll take anything bargain basement. Surely there's no need to buy for every person at the SGC, but according to Daniel, they are all part of his family and worthy of the same attention he lavishes on me. Pfft… in that case, why aren't we using his credit card?

So, I relent… a little too quickly. "Okay, grab your coat."

And we're walking.

Err… make that driving.

You get the idea.

~oOo~

"And we're in the kids section, why?"

"Because, I'm a kid, Jack."

Apparently, that's supposed to explain everything.

"And because, being a kid, I like to give my friends gifts I can relate to."

"Right," I drawl out, and grudgingly conceded that in some illogical way, he makes sense. Hate that.

I turn my back for two lousy and seconds and… "Now, where the heck have you gone!" Great, the store is crowded with Christmas shoppers and I've lost Daniel not five minutes into the expedition.

"Over here, Jack."

I scan the area; my finely honed spidey skills coming to the fore as they zero in on – a basket of toys with a hand waving out the top?

Just as I push my way through the crowd to the basket, the hand disappears and moments later I hear a muffled cry. "Found it!"

"Daniel?" God, this is embarrassing. The mound of stuffies looks like its moving by itself, and somewhere underneath all these oddly named toys, is my kid. So, I shuffle my feet, whistle, throw a cautious glance in the direction of the store security camera, and do my best casual shopper impersonation. Who am I kidding? I expect to be arrested any moment now.

"Almost done, Jack," comes Daniel's muffled reply. "All the good ones are on the bottom."

"So you had to dive on in to find them? Why not just take them out? A heck of a lot more inconspicuous."

The mound of stuffies heave, and out pops Daniel with a toothy mile-wide grin on his face and fist fulls of toys. "Eureka!"

"You what?" It's at this point I finally pay attention to the hoards of disgruntled shoppers milling around me, all staring incredulously at my kid. "Hey, is there problem here folks? So, he's practicing to be an archaeologist when he grows up. Gotta get his excavating skills honed somewhere."

Not sure they brought my explanation, but I shush them all way with a few well placed flicks of the wrist, and turn to lift Daniel out of the basket.

"Just how old do you think you are?" I ask with an accusing stare.

"Well," Daniel starts. "Biologically, I'm-,"

I'm sure my brain is bleeding. "I wasn't asking for specifics, Daniel. It's a phrase meant to demean the actions of the askee."

"Askee? Adding another new word to your vocabulary, Jack? And for your information, the jury is out on my physiological age. Janet says six, I say more like nine or ten."

"And I say po-tar-toe. Are you done now?" I waggle my fingers at his hands, still clutching the stuffies.

Inspecting them closely, he gives them a nod of satisfaction and tosses them into my lovely yellow Ikea basket - all the best-dressed colonels are wearing them these days.

"Yep, eleven should do it."

"Eleven? You expect me to pay for eleven of these-these… what are these things?"

"Blarnsigs."

Sounds Swedish. "What?"

"It's the Swiss name for a stuffed toy."

I knew that. "I knew that."

"Then why did you ask?"

"I was expecting a more accurate answer, Dr. Jackson."

"More accurate, as in?"

I shake the basket at him. "As in, why do you need eleven and why are they all different."

"Ah!" Daniel taps his chin and peers at me over the top of his glasses. I can see this is going to take a while so I tip my head in the direction of the cafeteria. Coffee would definitely help wash away the bitter coppery taste of my impending brain hemorrhage.

We select a seat. I go for coffee; Daniel agrees and reaches for a cup. We settle for a Mexican stand-off that lasts long enough for the lady at the register to tell us to hurry up or leave the queue. Daniel takes his loss rather well and only kamikazes one Swedish meatball, which conveniently lands on the tray of the lady sitting at the table next to us. Fortunately, she wasn't looking at the time and didn't notice the brown gravy stain on her otherwise pristine white tailored suit. Gucci no less.

"You want to tell me why my credit card has gone AWOL at the thought of having to pay for all of this and what happened to bargain basement?"

"You see," he mumbles around a mouth full of meatballs, tongue darting out to catch a dribble of gravy. "It all comes down to personality."

"They have personalities?" I look at the over-flowing basket and frown. "Nope, not seeing it."

"Not their personality. Pfft, you can be silly sometimes. No, I'm talking about the personalities of the people I'm giving them to."

Oh, right. I knew that. "Let's pretend I don't understand and you can explain it to me."

"This one." Daniel picks up an elephant on two legs. "This is Cassie."

"It is? You sure?"

"Uh, huh." He bends down and picks up… another elephant. This one is standing on all four legs. "And this is Janet."

Danger, Will Robinson! "Do you have a death wish? You might be six-"

"Ten!"

"Seven."

"Ten."

"Aht! You might be small, but she can still stick needles in your butt, kiddo. Never, and lets be clear here, NEVER call a woman a hippo."

"Oh." He rummages through the basket and pulls out something long and red. "So, assigning Sam the persona of a hippo is?"

My jaw is flapping in the wind but nothing is coming out. I squeak. How manly of me.

Daniel is holding the hippo close to his face, smiling at it. "Yep, you are so Sam. She just doesn't know it yet."

Great! We're only up to number three on Personality Assignment 101 and already I've planned his third funeral. What's next?

"And you are Uncle George!" he declares, holding up a pink cow. PINK! Instinctively, I wipe my nose. Nope, no blood… yet.

I hesitate to ask, but curiosity gets the better of my mouth. "How did George end up with the cow?"

Daniel settles the cow next to the two hippos and purses his lips at me. "Do you remember our vacation to Arkarna?"

Which in Daniel speak translates to, 'Do you remember our mission to Arkana where I was turned into a child after you touched something?'

"Hard to forget that one, buddy." I use a pet name on him, hoping he'll go easy on me.

"And do you remember how Uncle George looked when you told him what happened?"

Oh, yes. Now there's a moment in time I hope to never see again. Good old George, hands on hips, neck puffed out past the collar of his shirt, went a brighter shade of-

"Okay." I pat the pig fondly on the head. "You're going to love you're new owner."

"Now these two." Daniel pulled two slightly different something's out of the basket. "This is Walter and Siler."

"And they are?"

"Oh, har-har! You know who Walter and Siler are, Jack."

What? "Of course I do."

"Then why did you ask?"

I'd head the desk about now if Daniel's quickly cooling plate of meatballs wasn't in the way. "What animal are they, wise-one?"

"Oh, um, giraffe."

Could have fooled me.

"This one is Siler."

"He's looking rather blue."

Daniel looks from one giraffe to the other and then back at me. "They're both blue, Jack."

"And you're point is?"

"The one with the longer neck is Siler because he needs it to reach places so he can fix things."

"With his neck?"

Daniel's normally animated face goes blank. His eyes stare in to my soul and question my sanity. Too late – I've been doing that for the last hour.

"Moving on," he declares. "This is Walter." Moments later, Walter the Ikea Giraffe breaks into tune. Apparently this one is musical.

"I'm thinking of having Sam record over the music with something more appropriate?"

Shoot me now. "Like?"

"Something catchy." He bops along to the rather emotionless ditty for a few seconds before clearing his throat and joining in. "Chevron one, locked. Bop-bop. Chevron two, locked. Bop-bop!"

And that fine little rendition of a major security breach was brought to you by radio Jackson. Playing live at your local Ikea store. Check your guide for locations and times!

"Daniel!"

He looks at me all innocent like. "You don't like my singing?"

"I don't like the idea of issuing non-disclosure agreements to the whole of Ikea."

He frowns at my comment, but after a minute the light-bulb floating above his head switches on with a chorus of angels singing, "Hallelujah."

"Oops."

"And you thought Uncle George went all pink-piggish on me after our vacation to Arkana!"

"Moving on again?"

"Think so."

It's a chicken! This latest stuffie has me totally bamboozled. Daniel sits him on the table, after assigning the rest of the collection back to the basket, and grins at me like a loon.

"This would be?" I'm running through likely candidates in my mind.

"Teal'c!" he shouts out.

Not one of the candidates I was thinking off.

I take in the chicken's outward appearance and frown. No Jaffa tattoo on its forehead – not much of a forehead either. I poke its tummy. Nope, no Goa'uld in the pouch.

My nose twitches and I blink at Daniel. "I'm just not seeing it."

He tips the Teal'c the chicken on its head and winds the little winder on its butt. Teal'c would be dead impressed with this.

"I'm thinking Sam should probably reprogram this one as well."

I quickly skim over a list of possible security implications and watch his lips for the next words out of his mouth.

"Mama Mia," he says in thought.

"Mama who?" Is Italian one of those twenty-three languages he knows?

"Abba!"

So… not Italian. "Oh, no, no, no."

"Why not?" he whines, looking positively defeated.

"Because hulking Jaffa don't walk around being all scary while singing Mama Mia."

"Teal'c does."

"Since when?"

"Since he has the marines working out in the gym to the complete works of Abba."

"Oh, he so does not." I know when I'm being bullshitted to.

"Ask Sam."

"Why?"

"She and Janet like to-"

I don't want to hear this. "La la la." Okay, so it's infantile, but putting my fingers in my ears and singing sort of works for me. I keep this up until he huffs and folds his arms across his chest, slumping back in the chair.

"You finished?" I ask.

He nods.

"Sacred women stuff, Daniel. It's not for us men to know about, got that?"

Another nod and I swear his nodder is going to break if he keeps this up.

"Got another good friend to totally embarrass?"

Sheepishly, he grabs haphazardly at the next stuffie. "Ah! Bra'tac."

"A… what is that?"

"A crocodile."

I'm not quite sure how Bra'tac equates to a crocodile.

"Come on, Jack."

"What?"

"I can hear your mind working overtime from here."

"And?"

"A crocodile has tough skin, right?"

"Guess so."

Daniel raps the side of his head and smiles. "And Bra'tac wears that skullcap thing."

How does he come up with these comparisons? I don't get it. He walked in here knowing exactly what he wanted and dove straight in… literally.

"So who is this then?" I pull the Lion out of the basket and smile. "It is a Lion, right?"

"Yep," he confirms. "This is Jacob."

I try not to look downfallen. I sorta hoped this little guy would be me. You know, Jack the Lionhearted. Jack the fearless. Jack the-

"You're an Ostrich."

"What?"

"You wanted to be the lion, but you're definitely an ostrich." Daniel rescues the ostrich from the basket and plonks it down in front of me, its long-necked head immediately thumping the table top. Hold your head up, man, have some dignity.

"I am not an ostrich," I declare with as much authority as my battered ego can muster.

"Yes you are."

"Not."

"Am."

"Not!"

"What do you do when Sam presents you with a mission report you don't understand?"

"I… err-"

"Ask Teal'c?"

"Your point being?"

"You put your head in the sand. You're an ostrich."

"Damn."

"Don't worry, Jack." He reaches over and pats the back of my hand. "If it's any consolation…" He draws a camel from the basked and sits it next to the ostrich. "Most camel herders keep ostriches on their property. They live hand in hand, just like us."

"You're the camel?"

"If you're the ostrich, what else would I be?"

The End