A/N: This chapter is kinda short, so because of that and because it's been a while since I updated - you get two chapter today. Enjoy!

Chapter 7 – Operor Non Abicierum

Jack was the happiest he had been years, too many years, and woke up earlier than he usually did. Sam was still asleep in his arms, not wanting to wake her up he carefully slipped out of bed and decided to take a little walk around the ship. Given the early hour Jack figured it would be safe to slip in to the Asgard core and look over a few things before anyone else woke up. Upon entering the room he was shocked to find Daniel already there busy reviewing sections of the Asgard history.

Jack decided it was best to stick with his usual tactics when entering an area where Sam or Daniel were immersed in their work and casually said, "So whatcha doin?" while walking around to find something to fidget with.

It took a moment for Daniel to realize that someone else was there and was speaking to him and then said, "Oh, just the usual… trying to learn as much about the Asgard as possible, I've been going over their history lately and am getting close to more recent events." After he finished reading the section in front of him, Daniel turned to Jack and said, "I never expected you to show up here, much less at 6am in the morning" glancing at his watch to confirm the current time.

With that comment Jack shoved his hands in his pocket and turned to face a nearby display and quietly started to speak, "Well… it's just that I've been so happy and at ease since yesterday that I slept better than I have in… well, lets just say too long, and I woke up early and decided to wonder about the ship. I didn't think that anyone else would be up and was a little surprised to find you here."

"Yea, about that…" Daniel started to say, "Vala had a little too much eggnog yesterday and is snoring really loudly, so I decided to come here and enjoy the peace and quiet."

Jack was listening to Daniel when he noticed what was one the screen in front of him and couldn't help but to let out a little laugh.

"It's not that funny Jack, everybody snores," Daniel said thinking that he was laughing about his situation.

All that Jack could manage to say was, "What, oh that. I wasn't laughing about that, although it is a little funny," not able to come up with anything else.

"Well if you weren't laughing at that, then what were you laughing at?" Daniel replied. Jack had started to say something about a Simpsons episode he was think of when Daniel noticed that Jack hadn't taken his eyes off the screen in front of him. "Hey, wait a second," Daniel interrupted, "Are you laughing at what is written on that screen?"

"Uhh…" was the only thing that Jack was able to say. He immediately got mad at himself for the slip-up in front of Daniel and knew that he would no longer be able to keep this secret any longer. With that thought complete he sharply turned around to face Daniel and simply stated, "Yea, don't you think it's kind of funny reading about their view of the first encounter with one 'Colonel Jack O'Neill, United States Air Force, Earth' as they put it."

Daniel was so caught up in what Jack was saying that he replied, "Yea, I thought that section was pretty funny. Imagine that an alien race would see so much potential in our species just by meeting you, that isn't usually the first thing that comes to mind when someone first meets you… Hey wait a minute, all of these screens are written in the Asgard language. That means that you, you, you…" Daniel started mumbling unable to actually say it himself.

"That I can read their language," Jack finished for him, immensely amused with the look on Daniel's face. "In fact, I'm rather fluent with it, along with a few other languages: the Nox, the Jaffa, definitely Ancient, and a little of the Furlings, although that one is a little more difficult since we don't have many samples of their language and have never met them but I still like to think that I'm as familiar with it as anyone can be," Jack finished with a smug, proud look on his face. Daniel just stared at him with his mouth hanging open unable to say anything. Figuring it would be a little while, Jack continued "You know you really need to work on your translation of 'Abicierum' it means 'to give up' not 'surrender' like you said yesterday. I don't know why, but you have always had trouble translating it correctly since we encountered it on that planet with the broken time machine. I guess it's because you weren't able to spend as much time as Teal'c and myself studying the context in which it was used, not that I would wish that experience on anyone but…" Not wanting to dwell too much on that part of the time he spent 'looping' Jack continued, "Well let's just say that since that time I have 'not given up' learning about alien languages."

Daniel continued to just stare at Jack utterly speechless. Knowing Daniel would need time to digest everything he had just said, Jack announced, "Well all of that talking has made me hungry so I'm going to go get some breakfast and you can join me there when you have finished processing everything. I'm sure you will have plenty of questions and I'll answer them after I have a full stomach.

As Jack was leaving the room Daniel managed to say "Ok" as he disappeared down the hallway.

TBC

One more chapter to go for today. So... what do you think so far?