Note: It took a long time to continue with this story because I broke my left arm a couple weeks ago. I'm glad people are thinking this story is entertaining. This chapter sort of has a little more Sam/Jack stuff in it, but it's really just sort of incidental. I wanted this story to be like they've already been together for a while so it's not really a big deal to anybody else anymore, and make this story more of a team-fic thing.

Ch 10

"I have an idea," Sam said, interrupting the arguing that had broken out over which sort of game to play and how to configure the teams next.

Everyone stopped talking and looked at her expectantly - it was one of the bonuses of routinely saving the universe. When you said "I have an idea," people generally shut up to hear what you had to say - even if it was just about paintball.

"Since we've clearly established that even four against two, you guys can't beat us…" Hey, she wasn't going to brag as much as Vala was, but she was still going to get in a few good digs. "Anyway. It would seem that maybe we need to cut the teams down even further. I know it's not really in keeping with our usual 'togetherness' mottos but how about one game of everyone for themselves?"

"One ultimate paintball champion… I like the sound of that," Cameron said.

"Says the man who was shot first last time," Vala said quickly.

"Yeah, you won't have any help this time, Pigtails."

"Well, if I didn't need any help to steal the Prometheus, beating Daniel up quite nicely in the process I might add, what makes you think you've got a shot…"

"Hey, knock it off," Jack interrupted. He still wasn't entirely clear on where Sam was going with this idea, and he wanted to hear the rest of it.

"Obviously if we're all going to be off by ourselves we need to take a few more precautions…" Sam continued.

"And make a few more rules," Daniel contributed, rubbing his sore bum - the fact that he'd been made to sit on the hard ground immediately after Vala shot him didn't exactly help.

"So, here's what I'm thinking," Sam said. "It wouldn't be fair if, say, Teal'c picked off everyone but me and then I snuck up behind him, shot him, and won. So I think we should play more like it's laser tag. We'll set a specific time limit - say, two hours. Whoever shoots the most people in that time wins."

Daniel and Vala both raised their hands immediately.

Sam sighed. "Daniel?"

"She's going to cheat," he said, pointing at Vala with his gun.

"Vala?"

"I'm not going to cheat!"

"This from the woman who still has my credit card."

"I told you I was hiding it somewhere on my person Daniel, it was you who elected not to search me thoroughly to retrieve it."

"Okay," Sam interrupted. "Everyone keep track of how many times other people hit you, not just how many people you hit. We've all got different colors of paint. So, in the event that the numbers don't add up in the end, we'll just count up the fresh paint - the rest is dried or smeared now anyway."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Wait," Cameron interrupted. "What's to stop somebody from unloading their whole hopper on one person once they find them?"

"After you shoot someone, you have to go in separate directions for at least… ten seconds," Vala suggested.

"And we'll use 7 for emergencies, and channel 1 to report if anybody's violating that rule."

"Sounds like a plan. So in two hours we'll meet up back here."

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"Don't you think there's perhaps a slight possibility that you may be acting just the tiniest bit paranoid?" Jack asked as Sam smashed several colors of spare paintballs onto the back of his shirt.

"Well, we want it to look like we spent more than fifteen minutes playing with them, don't we?" she shrugged.

"We're all adults here," he pointed out.

"Yes, individually we are all adults. Yet somehow when we're all together and not in some sort of dire emergency, Daniel, Vala, and Cameron all regress at least twenty years or so," Sam explained as she spread her outer shirt out on the ground and started shooting it.

"Well at least it's only those three," Jack remarked.

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Two hours later, Daniel found his way back to the spot where he'd been tied up before. Teal'c was leaning against a tree. Mitchell was sitting against it again, although Daniel would have thought he'd had more than enough of that for one day after they'd been tied up in nearly the same position. Vala was lying on her back on the ground, pointing out clouds in the sky with the barrel of her gun, and trying to get everyone else's opinion on what they looked like, then arguing with them vehemently when they didn't agree with her on what they looked like.

"'Bout time, Jackson," Mitchell greeted him.

Daniel glanced as his watch as he joined the group. "I'm like two minutes late."

"He's just upset because you just lost him ten bucks," Vala explained, sitting up and brushing herself off. Teal'c gave her a hand to her feet.

'How? And don't you know by now not to bet against Teal'c?" Daniel asked, shaking his head at Cameron.

"I guess that'd be a 'no,'" Cameron said dryly..

"Colonel Mitchell believed you would be the last one here."

"Oh. Yeah, where are Jack and Sam?" Daniel asked, switching his radio on and trying to contact them.

Vala and Teal'c exchanged looks and Vala burst out laughing.

"What?" Daniel and Mitchell both asked.

"Oh, you sweet, naïve earthlings," Vala said, patting Daniel on the cheek. He scowled at her and picked a leaf out of her hair. "Well, shall we tally up the paint splatters and see who won?"

"Shouldn't we wait for Carter and General O'Neill? Odds are at least one of them…" Mitchell began.

Daniel finally got what the look between Teal'c and Vala was all about. "Oh! OH! Ew, Vala, you're saying they set up this whole last game just to keep us busy and out of the way for a while so they could go…"

"It was fairly obvious, I thought," Vala said casually. "Don't you agree, Teal'c?"

"Indeed."

Mitchell looked a bit nauseous.

"So, now that you boys have caught up to the rest of the class and we're all on the same page, let's just see who our ultimate paintball champion is, shall we? Colonel Mitchell, I believe I shot you twelve or thirteen times?"

"Yeah, in your dreams! Try four."

"Four? Of all the ridiculous…"

"This is going to take a while," Daniel muttered to Teal'c, who nodded.

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When the group clambered into the cabin, each was being deliberately loud. "I call the first shower!" Vala insisted, hurrying down the hallway. As she got closer, she could hear that the shower was already running. "Okay, I call the next shower."

Daniel squeezed past her in the narrow hallway, his arms full of paint-splattered clothes and paintball equipment.

"Trying to play favorite, darling?"

He gave her a look and nudged open the partially closed door to Jack's bedroom, knowing that at least one (hopefully only one) of them was in the shower. He intended to dump all the stuff that had been lying around the cabin - some of it outside as well - just inside the door and leave. After dropping the pile by the door, however, he saw that Jack was sound asleep, in exactly the same position they'd found him in when Loki had stolen him for a week.

He was wearing boxers, and his butt was just sticking up in the air like the perfect target… Daniel couldn't help but take aim with his paintball gun, although he wasn't seriously going to shoot him… probably. It would be wrong… when he was asleep, in such a vulnerable position, completely incapable of defending himself…

"What are we doing?" Vala asked, squeezing past him to see what he was seeing.

"Hey, Jackson, what's…" Mitchell said at the same time, clapping Daniel on the back. Being jostled so much by the both of them, Daniel squeezed the trigger accidentally.

The time it took for the paintball to travel its designated path passed in a kind of terrified slow motion for Daniel. As soon as it made contact with its target, however, everything happened at once.

Jack yelped as he was awakened most unpleasantly, tried to turn around to see what exactly was happening, got his legs caught in the sheets, and had to fight them off with some very un-General-ish scrambling kicks and curses. Cameron tried to back out of the doorway, but backed straight into Teal'c, who had snuck up on them all to see what was going on.

Jack finally got free of his sheets and sat up, looking at them all in a sort of sleepy anger. "What the hell are you doing? And which one of you shot me in the ass?"

Vala and Cameron pointed at Daniel, although since both of them still had their guns on and were using them to point, O'Neill wasn't entirely convinced. Until he saw the look on Daniel's face.

"It was an accident, Jack, I swear. He shoved me. And she's just… in the way."

"Uh-huh."

Before Jack could get up and go after him - there were plenty of paintball guns still lying around, after all - Daniel decided to take the offensive. "What are you doing here anyway, Jack? Get bored with your own game of paintball?"

"Carter twisted her ankle." He said it as almost a question.

"Funny, I didn't hear anything on the emergency channel, did any of you guys?" Daniel asked, looking around.

Vala shook her head seriously. Mitchell seemed to be pretending not to be listening.

"She uh, didn't have to use it because when she twisted it, she had just shot me, so we were still within earshot."

"Really," Vala deadpanned. "Well, isn't that lucky?"

Cameron muttered something about going fishing and backed out of the doorway, giving in and just shouldering his way past Teal'c's impressive road block. Teal'c finally allowed him to pass.

"I can't believe you shot me," Jack said, trying to twist around enough to see his injured backside.

"You shot me in the arm with a bullet, Jack."

"That was at least two years ago, you've gotta let that one go, Spacemonkey."

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When Sam emerged from the bathroom, Vala and Daniel were both sitting against the wall opposite the door, clearly waiting for the bathroom. "Hi guys," she offered, unable to shake the thought that they looked like children sitting in time out.

"And where have you been, young lady?" Vala asked.

Daniel nudged her. "So, Sam, what happened? Why'd you quit the game?"

Without missing a beat, she responded casually, "Jack's knee was bothering him."

To her credit, she said it so convincingly that under other circumstances they probably would have believed her. They let her think she'd convinced them as Daniel and Vala nodded together and got to their feet.

"So, who won?" Sam asked, after clearing her throat and furrowing her brow, trying to act like she really cared about the answer to the question and wasn't just trying to change the subject.

"Teal'c," Daniel reported.

"Of course he did. Well, I'll get out of your way so you can get cleaned up…"

She was halfway down the hall when Daniel remarked loudly and innocently to Vala, "You know, it's amazing they both made it back here at all, what with Sam's twisted ankle and Jack's bad knee."

"I know, it's remarkable, isn't it?" she echoed.

Sam froze for a moment and then decided this was one of those times when it was probably better to just not say anything.

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TBC