Chapter Two
General O'Neill sat at his desk trying to comb through the mountain of paper work that had somehow accumulated over the weekend. It wasn't bad enough that seemingly every problem in the galaxy ended up on his desk, but also a countless number of budgets, supply requests, mission reports, status reports, and random inner base workings paperwork as well.
A delicate knock at Jack's open door caught his attention. Carter was standing in the doorway with her arms folded over her chest. She had one of those expectant 'aren't you forgetting something' looks on her face.
"Oh right, the briefing on PX7-whatever." Jack suddenly remembered.
"PX72-598." Sam supplied.
"I'll be right there."
"No rush, Daniel's late too."
"Really? Good."
"Good?"
"Makes me feel like less of a yutz."
Sam chuckled and wandered back into the briefing room where Teal'c waited patiently. Jack signed a document that he had half read and pushed it to the side of desk, hoping that it wouldn't come back and bite him in the ass later.
Although not really looking forward to a report on the team's latest trip, it couldn't possibly be any duller than what he was doing. Jack joined Sam and Teal'c in the briefing room. Sitting down he pulled the thick report folder towards himself. He picked it up and without opening it he weighed it in his hand.
"Daniel wrote this, didn't he?" Jack asked rhetorically. "There must be a hundred pages here."
"One hundred and thirty-six." Teal'c corrected.
Jack glared at Teal'c briefly, but then realized that he had walked into that comment. He looked up at the clock and noticed that the morning was slipping away from him faster than he'd thought.
"Let's just get started." Jack suggested.
"Well, this planet is kind of Daniel's project." Sam pointed out.
"Right, of course it is."
Jack got up and went over to the phone on the wall. He dialed the extension down to Daniel's office. When it was clear that no one was going to answer he hung up. He walked over to the door out to the main hall. The guard outside the door turned his attention to him.
"Airman, go find Dr. Jackson...tell him he's late. Very unprofessional."
"Yes, Sir."
Jack sat back down and looked at Sam and Teal'c. Sam flashed a quick tight lipped smile, while Teal'c remained as calm and stoic as ever. It quickly became obvious that neither one of them had anything to say.
"So...how was the weather on PX7-whatever?" Jack asked lightheartedly.
"Very agreeable." Teal'c replied seriously.
"Good to hear."
An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Before anyone could think of anything else to say a quiet knock at the door interrupted the silence. The man that Jack had sent off to find Daniel opened the door, but did not step into the room.
"Sir?" The Airman asked.
"Yes?"
"Dr. Jackson did not check into the base this morning."
"When was he due?"
"Forty-five minutes ago."
"Thank you, dismissed."
Jack furrowed his brow in thought, trying to keep the icy feeling from creeping across his skin. He'd only known Daniel to not check in one other time, and that was because he was busy deciding whether or not to step off his fourth story balcony.
"It's not like Daniel to not check in." Sam mimicked Jack's thoughts.
"No...it isn't." Jack agreed.
Getting back up Jack went over to phone once more and dialed. The only voice that answered was Daniel's answering machine. Jack didn't have any other numbers to try. Daniel didn't have a cell phone, he didn't like them. Jack suddenly realized that he was leaving a long blank message on Daniel's machine and hung up.
"Does anyone else have a bad feeling about this?" Jack sighed.