A/N: Thanks to VesperRegina for her beta-ing help. (She's my big sis, btw.) If any of you are interested in a similar story to this, visit her livejournal, which you can reach through her website: www dot vespertanmer dot com ... The story's called: "Nuclear Force". Thanks!

misao-incarnate

"Little Gestures"

The SG-1 team were in the middle of a pizza place, Jack and Teal'c listening, or pretending to listen, to Daniel and Sam chatting away about some lengthy topic or another. Daniel paused in his prattle for one moment to take a bite of one of the slices of pizza piled high on his plate, set it back down, and started to tell Sam something when, without warning, Jack reached across the table toward him.

Daniel stopped mid-sentence, and ducked away a bit before noticing the napkin held in Jack's hand. "You have a little something..." Jack mumbled, concentrating on an area of Daniel's face near his mouth. Daniel blinked at him.

"Oh," he managed to get out, and Jack finished efficiently wiping with the napkin then placed it back down on the table next to his plate.

"There," Jack said with a satisfied smile, and Daniel realized that he'd forgotten what he'd been about to say to Sam a few seconds earlier.

Samantha cleared her throat and interjected into the strange silence innocently, "What were you going to say, Daniel?" She then turned her attention to her piece of pizza, possibly with the ulterior motive of hiding her smile behind it.

Daniel took his eyes away from the Colonel and blinked at her, mouth slightly open. "Huh? Sorry, what did you say, Sam?"

She grinned at him in amusement but only replied, "Nothing, Daniel."

Daniel frowned slightly, feeling a little confused and bewildered. 'What just happened?' he questioned silently. He looked over at Teal'c, who sat beside him, wondering if there was a clue in the Jaffa's expression that would give the answer away but only saw a raised eyebrow shaded by a baseball cap. So, feeling as if he shouldn't, but knowing that he wouldn't be able to help himself anyway, he turned his gaze back to Jack O'Neill.

However, the Colonel seemed to be fixing all his attention on the mountain of pizzas on his dish. Daniel pursed his lips and continued to stare, hoping his fixed gaze would catch the Colonel's attention. After a moment, Jack looked up.

"What?" He sounded clueless, but Daniel had known him long enough to realize Jack's denseness wasn't as real as it seemed.

Daniel frowned, wanting to ask, 'Why did you do that?' but found himself unable to.

"Wouldn't want you walking out of here with tomato sauce on your mouth," Jack told him, shrugging. His brown eyes twinkled as he added teasingly, "You know the women don't go for that messy eater look." He then returned to his chow-fest as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Daniel covered his confusion with a bite of pizza. And then it occurred to him that Jack had always been like this with him. Had it taken him this long to realize it? A warm feeling settled in his stomach, but he shrugged it off mentally, 'That's just how he is...' always doing little things that showed he cared.

Grinning stupidly, he turned to Sam, "Where was I?"

End