"And there was a diner, underwater! How do they eat those crabby patties?! They wouldn't be able to make them in the first place!"
Sam was rewiring a medium sized alien device, with Daniel leaning on the table, next to her, ready to lend a hand within a millisecond. He gazed at her with a bemused expression and replied,
"It's a kids' cartoon!"
As he silently passed her a screwdriver, she exclaimed, "And you wonder why education standards are slipping?!"
"Sam, why do you even watch those shows if all you're going to do is pull them apart?! And weren't you supposed to be babysitting?!"
She distractedly gesticulated with the screwdriver as she replied, "I can't have my nieces and nephews having unrealistic ideas about science! It's bad enough that Elouise thinks that mice should wear clothes and talk like that guy from Back to the Future!"
She paused, looked up as if realising something, and he remarked,
"Oh no, don't even start on Back to the Future!"
She glanced at him and replied passionately, "Well, a time-travelling DeLorean!? 88mph?! What's the catch - it gets lodged in a temporal vortex?! And how would he remember making the changes to create an alternate timeline? How would he ensure that his name would stay the same?! They were rather taken with it when he left -- he could've gone home and found that his older brother was called 'Marty' instead!"
He chuckled as she went back to work, and Jack walked in.
Daniel straightened up and said in surprise, "Jack!"
Sam looked up, stood to attention, and exclaimed, "Sir! When did you drop in?"
Jack replied with a smirk, "Oh just a few minutes ago... what are you kids up to?"
Daniel replied with a raised eyebrow, "Sam's rewiring the burnt out device from P4X-019."
Sam continued, smiling, "So Sir, what brings you out here?"
"Oh nothing... well, one thing. I'm seeing Sara again."
Sam cast her eyes down briefly for a second as his words sunk in, before she said, "Oh... but doesn't she live a few kilometres from the mountain?"
He replied, "Yeah, but I need you... well, both of you."
Daniel remarked, "Begging dating advice off two of the SGC's dateless wonders isn't going to get you anywhere."
This earned him a hit from Sam, and he remarked as he clutched his arm, pretending to look hurt,
"What? How long is it since you've had a date?!"
"Oh, just because you've had a date recently!"
"It wasn't a date - it was a dinner between friends and co-workers!"
"Yeah right, and I used to play Poker with Einstein!"
Jack remarked with a bemused expression, "When you two have finished the foreplay, I really do need to ask something of ya."
They turned to look at Jack, who continued, "Thank you. As I was saying, I'm seeing Sara again, and Laney, her niece, has a birthday coming up. Now, I haven't a clue about girls, but I know buying her Batman stuff isn't going to work. So..."
Daniel gestured to himself and Sam, and remarked, "Hello, non-parents here."
Jack retorted, "Carter's got nieces!"
Sam asked with a slight frown, "But why do you need us, Sir? General Landry has a daughter, as do Siler, Harriman... and I'm sure Cam has a few sisters back home. Oh, and Cassie's only a phone call away, or... a plane trip."
Jack replied, "Ol' Hank said that you two haven't been home in three days, so this is my way of getting you off base."
Daniel remarked with a raised eyebrow, "And getting your birthday shopping done."
"There's that... you know what they say about two birds and a stone."
"How cliché of you, Jack."
"Shut up."
Sam and Daniel, in civilian clothes, stood in front of the largest toy store in town. She, a true Air Force officer, went about planning their excursion like a mission, but all was lost as they entered the premises. As he gazed around himself in wonder, she was away pressing buttons on various toys, setting them off.
"Daniel! Daniel! Come check this out!"
She was on the other side of the store by this time, and he rushed over to her position. She excitedly gestured towards a talking Dalek. She said with a grin as she pressed buttons,
"This is so cool! It talks and moves!"
He raised his eyebrows in surprise as the toy blasted, "Exterminate!", before sweeping it's eye stem in a 180 degrees arc. He then said with a smile,
"Sounds like Anubis."
She had raced off by this time, pressing more buttons on various toys, so he shrugged before a talking electronic Spanish learning game caught his eye. In no time at all, he was just as enthralled as Sam as he pressed various buttons and switches.
He wistfully thought of how he had rarely had toys as a child, and that he had never got the chance to go toy shopping like this before. He imagined Sha're's face on seeing a talking Dora the Explorer, or even just a double decker bus with buttons for letter sounds, shapes and numbers.
He was woken from his reverie by a hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see Sam, and she said softly, as though she had read his mind,
"Hey."
"Finished running round the store yet?"
She replied excitedly, her hands behind her back, "There's just so much stuff! I think Teal'c would really be intrigued by a Puff the Magic Dragon gift set! Oh, and..."
She produced a box from behind her back and remarked with a grin, "And cliché as this may be, 'I saw this and thought of you'. Lego Knights of the Round Table."
"Funny."
He took the box from her and asked as he studied it, "Did you get anything for Laney?"
"There were several Science kits..."
"Sam..."
She replied with a grin, "Just kidding. There's some Barbie stuff over there. How much did the General give us again?"
"$500."
She raised her eyebrows in surprise and remarked, "That much? I could've sworn it was something like fifty... so much for my mission plan."
He nodded and replied with a small smile, "He wants $499.50 back."
She shook her head in disbelief, before saying, "Well, the Bratz stuff was rather sickening..."
His head shot up and he asked, "Bratz?"
"Bastardised Barbie... huge heads with skinny bodies."
"Why does that conjure up images of Thor and the gang?!"
She chuckled and was about to drag him off to the Barbie aisle, when he frowned slightly as he gazed at the Lego set in his hands.
"Daniel, what is it?"
He glanced up before replying distractedly, "The architecture is a few centuries out of sync for the Arthurian legend. It's..."
"Oh, and you complain about my Science fixation?! Come on, we've got leave, and that involves 'leaving' work at the office."
He placed the box on a nearby shelf and retorted with a smile, "Look who's talking."
In the Barbie aisle, Sam began to rant as she gazed at the various dolls under the brand,
"This is just laughable. They promote an unrealistic idea of the ideal woman with a stupendous figure, and either unattainable vocations or ones with limited ambitions..."
"Sam..."
"Look at this - the most ambitious one here is a Vet, and that just seems to have more emphasis on how cute the animals are."
"Sam..."
"Where's the Air Force officer, the Archaeologist, the Astrophysicist?! What kind of a role model is..."
"Sam..."
"What?"
He gazed at her with a bemused expression and remarked, "Why did you drag me over to the Barbies if all you were going to do was pan them?! We're shopping for Laney remember?"
"But..."
"Sam, let's just get the Princess Barbie with the horses and get back to base before they send out search parties."
She rolled her eyes and said, "Fine, let's get the most unrealistic one!"
He remarked, "It's his niece we're shopping for, not one of our own!"
He blushed as he realised what he had said, and she blinked, exclaiming in surprise, "One of our own?!"
"Sorry, I meant if either of us went off to... will you stop looking at me like that?!"
In Sam's car, Daniel said as he belted up, "I don't know why you wouldn't use my car!"
She remarked with a grin as she started up the ignition, "If I wanted to travel along at snail pace..."
"Hey! It can reach a hundred in five seconds."
"Pfft, this baby can reach a hundred and thirty in three seconds, with fifty miles to the gallon. Boy, can you imagine if we juiced this up with a Naquadah reactor?!"
He said with a chuckle, "Hyper drive."
"Holy Hannah, we could go from here to China within seconds, but the calculations would be tricky."
"I'll bet. One wrong digit and we'd be in a lunar crater."
They chuckled at this, before she focused on keeping the car on the road.
A few minutes later, she glanced at him as she sped up a stretch of clear road, and asked, "If we could've gone to Cimmeria with Sha're..."
She noticed his jaw clenching up as he stared out of the side window, and she continued,
"... and you guys went on to have kids, what kind of toys would you have bought?"
He was silent for a long moment, and she was worried that he was offended. As she opened her mouth to apologise, he wistfully answered her question,
"If we had a girl, I probably would've considered the talking Dora the Explorer. I could imagine Sha're's face on seeing all those talking and moving toys."
He sighed quietly, and she prompted him, "What if you had a boy?"
"Maybe those Indiana Jones figurines or the Dalek... or even that Lego set."
She smiled slightly as she looked at the road, and he gazed at her, asking,
"What about you?"
"Hmm? Oh right, yeah... definitely the Lego and maybe that amazing Scaletrix near the back of the store."
He quietly remarked with a chuckle, "Unisex toys?!"
"Damn straight. I'm not having my kids adhering to gender-specific stereotypes. You moaned at me ranting at Barbie, but you're lucky that it wasn't the Bratz dolls... ewww..."
Back on base, Daniel helped Sam carry their precious cargo to Landry's office. Various personnel cracked jokes on catching glimpses of the packaging. Colonel Dixon joked that Barbie was an exiled Tok'ra hiding out on Earth, and that the two scientists had brought her in for interrogation.
Cam intercepted them and glanced inside the big bag, before remarking with a grin,
"One more to your collection?"
Daniel said loudly as a group of Nurses filed past, "Mitchell, here's the Barbie you wanted for your office!"
The Nurses giggled as they glanced at Cam questioningly, who remarked quietly to Daniel,
"Jackson, you dead."
"Pfft, I've died twice already, not counting alternate universes - bring it on."
They were soon joined by Teal'c, who said on seeing the contents, "It is the legendary Barbie of Mattel."
As Cam clapped Teal'c on the shoulder, Vala bounded up to them and asked,
"What's going on?"
Daniel replied with a frown, "Just been shopping."
"Ooh... I was under the impression that Earth brides-to-be had to be present for the all-important fitting!"
Daniel rolled his eyes as Cam and Teal'c barely restrained smiles, and Sam stared at her incredulously. Vala peeked into the bag and pretended to look disappointed as she remarked,
"You call me forward, but you've outdone me, shopping for our unborn children!"
Cam and Teal'c wandered off after exchanging an odd look, and Sam rolled her eyes. Daniel ducked his head briefly in defeat, before saying through gritted teeth,
"Vala, shut the hell up!"
He turned to Sam and said quietly, "Come on, let's go and find Jack before she gets even more suggestive."
She nodded and they practically fled from the raven-haired ex-thief, who called after them,
"You can run, Doctor Jackson, but you can't hide! One of these days you're going to have to face up to your undying love..."
Sam knocked on Landry's door, and when they heard him call 'Enter', she opened the door and entered the room with Daniel. Jack was sat across the desk from Landry, and they appeared to have been in a light-hearted discussion about something.
Sam said with a smile, "Sirs."
As they removed the bag and placed the box on the desk, Jack remarked with a smirk,
"Had fun?"
She replied with a grin, "Oh yes Sir! It was absolutely amazing, all those talking toys and..."
Daniel interrupted her excitedly, "And a talking Dora the Explorer!"
"And a huge Scaletrix set! It was just... wow."
Landry looked from one scientist to the other with a bemused expression, and Jack remarked,
"Surprised you didn't buy the whole store."
Daniel, realising something, pulled an envelope out of his jeans, and handed it to Jack. Jack weighed in his hand and remarked,
"There's gotta be about four hundred left in here... Y'know, I gave that much so you could go out and have fun!"
Sam replied with a smile as she glanced at Daniel, "Oh, we had fun, Sir."
Jack and Landry inspected the box, and the former remarked, "I wouldn't've known what sort of pink frilly thing to buy. Thanks kids, I owe you a big one."
Sam was about to say that he didn't, when Daniel said with a cheeky grin, "A couple of slices of the cake and we'll call it even."
Sam glanced at him, laughter in her eyes, as he wordlessly shrugged at her. Landry looked bemused, and Jack remarked with a raise of his eyebrows,
"Small price to pay."
A few mornings later, Sam unlocked the door to her office, to find a huge box of Scaletrix on her desk. She gasped in surprise as she gazed at it, touching the surface of the box to make sure that it was real. She found a note:
"L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle."
She frowned slightly, not sure what it meant, but recognised the writing. She smiled as she remembered their little shopping trip, but soon she began to feel guilty when she recalled the price. Just as she was about to turn around to find Daniel, she heard a voice,
"L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle."
She spun around and stared in surprise at the Archaeologist in her doorway. When she eventually regained the power of speech, she said,
"Thank you Daniel, but I can't accept this. It must've cost you all of your limbs!"
He smiled at her as he hitched his glasses up, and he replied, "It doesn't matter. I realised that the last time I saw you smile the way you did in the store was back when you got promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel."
"I... I don't know what to say."
His cerulean eyes caught the light as he said, "The note's in Italian, from Dante's Paradiso. 'The love that moves the sun and the other stars.'"
She stared at him, tears threatening to fall, as she exclaimed in a whisper, "Oh my."
He slowly entered the room and said, tenderly, "I should have told you a long, long time ago. I love you."
She turned away from him, unsure, before she pushed her crush for Jack aside. Old feelings resurfaced and she turned to face him.
"I love you too, Daniel."
He caressed her jaw as their gazes locked; blue on blue, cerulean on blue-grey. Aware of the camera, he pulled her into his arms and they stayed that way for a long while, until a passing Airman whooped. They pulled back in embarrassment, and she asked quietly,
"Will you be working late tonight?"
"Depends. This beautiful, brave and prodigious Astrophysicist just told me that she loves me. How about you?"
She replied with a grin, "Must be contagious. A certain gorgeous, seemingly immortal and very bright Archaeologist just told me the same."
"Screw the camera," he thought as he leant down and captured her lips with his own, just as a power surge occurred, sparks flying around them.
During the passionate embrace, he thought, "O mihi praeteritos referat si Juppiter annos!" ("O, if Jupiter would restore to me the years that are past!" - Virgil).