A/N: . . . on phone) . . . no sir, I don't own any part of Stargate SG-1 . . . yes sir I thought I should notify you of the fact immediately . . . yes sir . . . yes sir . . . no sir . . . of course, sir . . . thank you sir . . . I'll do that sir . . . Goodbye Mr. President. (click) Oh hello! I . . . uh . . . didn't see you there!

A/N2: Set sometime in Season Four, just because I like the original team best (Jack, Sam, Teal'c, Daniel, Janet, General Hammond, Walter, Syler, etc). BiteMeTechie's "100 starting lines" prompt from the When Plot Bunnies Attack forum, Line #105: "Blue Jell-O is the best..."

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Blue Jell-O is the best.

I'm not kidding, it's seriously the best dessert the commissary has to offer.

Colonel O'Neill disagrees.

He likes the pie.

Maybe it's a two-way split.

But as I'm sitting here, trying to clear my mind from the latest overwhelmingly complicated new alien technology I've been trying to figure out, all I can think is, man this is great Jell-O.

This sort of freaks me out, since the last time I thought food was this good, we all had Urgo in our heads, but since I haven't had an off-world trip in a few days and Janet says I'm healthy, I don't worry too much about it.

Dammit, it's 0530 already, I should've been at the lab an hour ago if I'm going to have any chance of figuring this device out before the next mission.

I hurriedly scrape the bottom of the goblet for the last remnants of the heavenly stuff, then grab my coat and head for the elevator. When I reach my level I wait impatiently for the doors to open, then power-walk down the corridor to my lab.

What the . . . how the hell did my door get locked? I left it closed, but I only lock it when I'm going off-base, because Felger sometimes needs some of my equipment for one of his "experiments," a.k.a. he just wants another excuse to talk to me. I mean, it's cute and all, but it gets annoying very fast.

Getting back to the door. This shouldn't be locked, I was only away from it for an hour and a half while I ate, and I've got the only key . . . wait . . . it's not in my pocket . . . there's something veeery familiar about this . . .

"Hey Carter, whatcha doin'?"

Of course.

Shoulda known.

Silently berating myself, I turn and force a smile at my dear commanding officer.

"Hi, sir."

"Working odd hours again? I've told you, it's not healthy," he admonishes.

I shrug. He makes a tutting sound.

"How much sleep have you gotten in the last week?" he asks, like he's a kindergarten teacher quizzing a student on quadratics.

I shift my weight a little. He raises his eyebrows at me. Dammit, he knows me too well.

"Enough." I evade the question with the skill of years' practice.

"Define 'enough.'" Damn he's good!

"Enough for me to do my work" ...pause... ". . . or it would be if I could get into my office."

Now it's his turn to lower his gaze and shuffle his feet. I smile triumphantly, "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that now, would you sir?"

". . . erm . . . no, Carter, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about," he says with a cheerfulness so fake it's nauseating. I roll my eyes and hold out my hand expectantly. He mutters something that sounds suspiciously like "D'oh," and fishes my keys out of his pocket.

Taking them from him, I smile and say "thank you," in the same cheerful tone he used, and let myself into the lab.

He follows, wearing an expression like a kicked puppy. Luckily, being both a sister and an auntie, I happen to be immune to big brown eyes . . . although his are really very nice . . . my god those lashes are gorgeous! Whoa, hey, back up there Sam, snap out of it before he notices.

"You okay Carter?"

Oops. Busted. Quick, fake a breakthrough!

"Um . . . yeah . . . I mean yes I am, I was just thinking about this . . . uh . . ." Aah, stall, stall, invent a doohickey, uhh, got it!

" . . . Total Destructive Interference Modulatory Generator. I think I know how to fix it!"

I start to rant about faulty mercury-plated sensor equipment, using as many long words as possible. His eyes immediately glaze over, and his face pales around the third sentence containing the phrase, "using Matthias's theoretical ideals, of course." Whew! I'm safe.

Taking pity on the poor guy, I stop explaining and lead him over to a chair. He sits down, still looking a bit shellshocked, but refuses my offer of water and shakes himself out of it.

"Anyway, Carter, I've been thinking," Uh-oh. Alert the media. "You've been working an awful lot lately," Tch, understatement of the year. ". . . and I think it's about time you got a break, don't you?"

Here we go again. Same old story. He says I'm working to hard, I say no I'm not, he says you never have any fun, I say this is fun, he says not as fun as fishing, I make some dumb excuse not to go to Minnesota with him, blahdee blahdee blah. Sheesh. You'd think he'd be tired of this by now.

I grimace and tilt my head, looking longingly towards the pile of work on my desk. Something tells me I'm not getting to that for a while.

"Sir, we've been over this," I try, but he cuts me off.

"I know we have, Carter, and all that's going to happen is I say you're working too hard, you say no you're not, I say you never have any fun, you say this is fun, and then I say fishing's better and we get into a long, convoluted argument over the lack of aquatic life in my pond."

Creepily accurate as that may be, I'm NOT going to get sucked into that today.

"Yes, sir, I know that," I try again, but no dice.

"Carter, don't make me make you, I'll order you if I have to." Since when can fishing be an order?

"Fishing can be an order if I think you're under too much stress." Okay, now that was downright insane.

"But I'm not under stress! I'm enjoying working on my projects!" I protest, but this really seems to be a "make Carter have fun no matter what the cost to humanity" day.

"Projects, schmojects. Come on, grab your stuff, I'll meet ya at the surface in five." And before I can object again, he's gone.

Damn that man.

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A/N: And there it is, the first chapter of Of Course You Know, This Means War. Next chappie is written, so's half of three. This should be a fairly short 'fic, I'm thinking five or six chapters, but if I have too much fun writing it it'll be longer.