Jack groaned and rubbed at his eyes. "Ohhh, god! I haven't partied like that since I was in college."
Dragging himself up from the grassy ground he lay on, Jack stumbled a few painful feet toward the rest of his teammates.
He gingerly sat down next to Sam, who was perched haphazardly on a dusty boulder facing Daniel and Teal'c.
"Sam?" Daniel asked his blonde-haired fellow explorer. "Are you okay?"
"Ow! Daniel, please! Don't yell!"
Daniel gave a sympathetic, yet quite amused, smile. "Sorry." He had, in fact, spoken in a relatively soft voice. "How do you feel?"
"Mmhhmmhh," Sam whimpered, holding her head in her hands but still managing to glare at Daniel. "How come Colonel O'Neill and I are the only ones with a hangover?"
"Um, well, I didn't drink any of that, uh, whatever that stuff was that they were serving," Daniel answered, wrinkling his nose in recollection of the drink's not-very-tempting smell.
"Nor did I," Teal'c stated with a smirk.
The group of four fell silent.
Jack sat with his eyes half closed.
Sam gave a small sigh and leaned slightly against his shoulder. He could hold her up for a while since her own muscles didn't seem inclined to do the job right now.
Daniel seemed quite nervous about something, his glance darting back and forth between Sam, Jack, and the ground at their feet.
Teal'c observed his three friends silently, then spoke. "Have you no intention of telling them, Daniel Jackson?"
Jack opened his eyes and looked at Daniel expectantly. "Tell us what?"
"Thanks a lot!" Daniel hissed with a glare at Teal'c.
Sam said nothing. She looked from Jack to Daniel to Teal'c, and then back at Jack. What was Daniel hiding?
"Daniel," Jack said in a warning tone, for Daniel had not yet answered the question.
"Um, well, I managed to find out the reason for the feasting and partying last night..." Daniel began.
"And?" Jack prompted when Daniel hesitated to finish.
Teal'c raised an eyebrow at Daniel, then finished the explanation. "The feast was in celebration of a marriage ceremony, O'Neill."
"Oh, is that all?" Jack immediately lost interest. "A couple of kids getting married? Well I wish them well, whoever they are," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
"Oh, if only it were that simple," Daniel said with much sorrow in his voice.
"What do you mean, Daniel?" Sam asked. She was in no mood for one of his guessing games.
But he was still quite reluctant to say. "It wasn't…exactly…a marriage between any of the villagers."
"Well if it wasn't one of them, that only leaves the four of us," Sam stated logically. "Right?"
"You are correct, Major Carter," Teal'c answered, still smirking.
"Oh for crying out loud, Daniel! Did you get married again?" Jack hollered in irritation. "How many wives are you planning to have? One for each planet?"
Daniel was insulted, but let it pass. "It wasn't me, Jack."
Not Daniel? Hmmmm. Jack ventured a guess. "Teal'c?"
Daniel shook his head.
"Now, I know it wasn't Carter! She was with me the whole time!" Jack stopped yelling and racked his brain, trying in vain to remember last night. "Wasn't she?"
"Um...well...yeah," Daniel answered haltingly. "But..."
"There—you see? She couldn't have run off and gotten married!" Jack stopped talking abruptly when he noticed the strange look Daniel was giving him. "No. No! No no no no no. I did not get married!"
Daniel bit his lip and nodded. "I'm afraid you did, Jack," he answered. "You, uh, you wore the native clothes, you sat on the marriage blanket. You shared the cup of wine...you danced..." Daniel gave a helpless and humorless laugh. "You, uh, you did all of it."
Sam looked like she was going to faint. Her Colonel was suddenly married? "But he couldn't have!" she argued. "He was with me! Wasn't he?"
"Is this all true, Teal'c?" Jack asked weakly. His head was spinning like a yo-yo.
"Indeed it is, O'Neill."
"Oh, god, kill me now!" Jack groaned in anguish. He forced his mouth to form the words that were stabbing at him. "Who did I marry?"
"Ummmm...I don't think you really want to know," Daniel tried to avoid having to give a direct answer.
"Daniel!" Jack grabbed the front of Daniel's jacket with both hands and growled the question again. "Who did I marry?"
Daniel winced, not at all eager to have the painful close-up view of Jack's fist. "Sam," he gasped, squinting his eyes in dread.
Jack merely raised his eyebrows. "Sam?"
"...Yeah," Daniel confirmed quietly.
"Sam." Jack seemed to ponder this for a moment. "Sam? That Sam? Our Sam?" Then his grip on Daniel's jacket tightened. "Sam?"
Daniel looked downright terrified. "Yeah," he whispered.
"Oh." Jack released him and calmly sat back down on the boulder.
Sam gaped at him. "Oh?" She demanded with a forceful swat to his shoulder. "We're married, and all you can say is 'Oh' ?"
Jack grabbed her flailing wrist and held it firmly away from his shoulder. "Yeah, 'Oh'! I don't know about you, but I kinda like that idea!" He practically growled the words and his eyes burned into hers, silently daring her to say otherwise.
"Oh yeah?" Sam challenged hotly. "Well so do I!"
Jack stared at her, his anger evaporating as her words sank into his brain. His brown eyes searched the blue depths of her eyes. "Yeah?" he asked curiously, a grin forming on his face.
Sam felt herself melting under his gaze. "Yeah," she said softly, giving Jack a smile of her own. "So what are we going to do about it?"
(time break)
Three days later, the four members of SG1 stood at attention before General Hammond.
"Does anybody care to explain this?" The General demanded impatiently, shaking a piece of paper at them.
Jack cleared his throat. "Yes, sir," he spoke up. "Uh, bit of a…kerfuffle…on our mission, sir." He grimaced at the look on Hammond's face and decided not to beat around the bush with this one. "Apparently Major Carter and myself got, um, 'hitched' while off world. Sir."
"Hitched," Hammond echoed, looking at his two best officers in disbelief.
Jack was almost positive he could see steam coming from the General's ears.
This time, Daniel was the one smirking, and Teal'c stood there calmly, with a stoic facial expression.
"You two got 'hitched'?" Hammond blandly repeated one more time.
"Yes, sir," Sam answered, flashing a smile at Jack. "And we'd like to make it legal, sir."
General Hammond's blood pressure spiked. "Oh for crying out loud!"