April 1, 2002 – Colorado Springs, CO

They dropped off Wilkins and Ferretti with one week leave, and then they dropped off Hailey in Washington. Jack asked her to meet him at his house in the Springs when she got some info for him. Afterwards, they flew to the cabin where Jack took his truck, and he and Vala headed to Colorado.

They walked into Janet's clinic to find a receptionist there, so they waited for her to finish her appointment. About twenty minutes later, Janet came out and saw them.

"How's business, Doc?"

"Jack!" She gave him a big hug. "You look better than the last time you came back from traveling. Vala, how are you?"

"I'm good, Janet. It's good to be back."

"Hey, Janet. Do you have plans tonight? I wanted to take you and Cass out if you're free," Jack asked her.

"Yeah, that would be great. I'm done here at 1800, so pick us up at 1930?"

"Perfect, I'll see you then."

Next, Jack went to the library to look for books on old French derivatives.

Who would have thought I would ever be doing this? Oh well, it's not like I can ask Daniel to do it this time. He'll just squeal to his boss and call me a bastard for not believing in the Aschen.

Surprisingly, he found a book that helped, and he pretty much translated all of the text. It did confirm that the Aschen were the newcomers that saved them from the great plague. But it didn't say much else, so it wasn't that much help.

He also found a book on Ancient Greek and was able to determine that they didn't get much of value on P9R-271 either. The banner they took simply said, "Welcome to our new friends, the Aschen."

He had no idea what to do with the newspapers from '194. He didn't even recognize what language it might have derived from. He needed someone he could trust but had no idea where to begin.

...

As 1930 rolled around, Jack went to the door to get Janet and Cassie. He knocked, and Cassie opened the door dressed to the nines.

"Wow, pumpkin, don't you look beautiful. I'll have to rethink where I was going to take you."

Jack was just wearing a navy blue button down shirt tucked into black pants, no jacket or even a tie.

"Jack! I missed you so much." She jumped into his arms. "Don't worry about the restaurant. We just wanted a chance to get dolled up."

"Hey, Jack, we're ready." Janet walked out and his jaw dropped. She was wearing a black dress a little above the knees, three inch heels, and her hair was a bit longer than he remembered.

Janet saw the look on his face and smirked, but inwardly, she was thrilled.

"Wow, Janet, you look great. I don't even have a tie on for cryin' out loud."

"It's fine. It's been busy around here lately, and, like Cassie said, we just wanted a chance to get pretty and go out."

"Well, I was hoping to catch up with the two of you. Now, I'm going to have beat all of the guys away from you if I want to talk."

She giggled. "You ready?"

"Let's go."

They all had a good time at dinner. Jack basically ignored Vala, and Janet caught him staring a couple of times.

Doesn't hurt to remind him that I'm a woman.

Cassie noticed it too and gave her mother a sly smile with a twinkle in her eye.

April 5, 2002 – Colorado Springs, CO

At about 0930, there was a knock on the door, and Vala answered it.

"Hi, Vala."

"Jennifer, come in."

Hailey walked into the living room and saw Jack sitting on the couch with his hair pointing wildly in every direction and a snug black t-shirt on.

"Morning, Jen. Want some coffee?" Jack asked as he got up and headed to the kitchen.

"Sure, thank you."

"So, you have news for me? Hopefully good news? Because, I've got nothing."

"Actually, I might. I found a couple of options. I have the reports on my laptop here. They both mention an old variant of French in the reports."

Jack took the laptop from her, set it on his coffee table, sat down on the couch, and began reading the reports.

"Jen, is it possible to get the other stuff related to these missions, like pictures of the text they saw?"

"I figured you would need that, so I got those too."

She stood next to him, leaned over, and opened the folder that had the pictures.

"That's the one. That's the same variant of French as the planet we just left from."

He then read the entire mission report.

"Well, this sounds like a good time. Apparently SG-7 went to this planet five years ago. When they got to town they were immediately detained, then sent back to the Stargate and told in no uncertain terms that visitors were not welcome."

"What are we going to do, sneak around some more?" Hailey asked him.

"I don't like the idea. Apparently the race they encountered was pretty advanced technologically, moreso than Earth anyway. If we have to, then we have to, but I would rather come up with another option. Besides, this is our best chance to get good information on what happened with the Aschen. I don't know if we would be able to get enough just sneaking around. We have a common enemy. I think we'll just have to try to talk to them."

"Are we going there next?"

"I think so. Well, Jen, good work. I guess you can go back home until Monday if you want, or you're welcome to hang out with this old man. You would have to sleep on the couch, though. Whatever you want. My hands are pretty much tied until we get back to work."

"I'll hang around here then, if you don't mind. I can help get things ready to go."

"Ok, sounds good, kid. I'm going to head out for a bit. Make yourself at home."

Jack drove to Janet's clinic and waited until she was available.

"Good morning, Janet."

"Hi, Jack, what's up?"

"There are a few things I wanted to talk to you about. Can we take it to your office?"

She turned and led him back to her office. "Sure, everything ok?"

"Yeah, great. I just don't feel like an audience. First thing, you know I bought Cassie a car for her birthday, right? You said you weren't going to, so you must have known I would have."

"Jack…," she said in an exasperated tone. "I figured you would do it, but you didn't need to. You spoil her enough as it is."

"Come on, Janet. I was on hazard pay for almost my whole career, and it's been a long time since I had someone to spend it on. Besides, I'm not going to make her rely on Aschen public transportation."

"Fine, I hope it's nothing extravagant."

"No, of course not. She doesn't need to go hot rodding around. It's a brand new, cherry red Camry. Safe, good on gas, runs forever."

"That's fine, then. So what else did you want to drop on me today?"

"Well, I need to know where I can get some hazmat suits, with cash."

"With that I think you'll have trouble. The government tracks the purchase of all medical equipment now. I'm lucky I bought mine before they started all of that."

"How many do you have?"

"Ten. Why, how many do you need?"

"I need five. Can I buy them from you? At least if you need to get more, you can since you're a doctor."

"Do I want to know what you need with five hazmat suits?"

"Probably not. And I wouldn't tell you until it was safe anyway. So whadda ya say, Janet? Mark them up as much as you want."

"It's not about the money, you idiot. Fine, take them. What else you got?"

"What's the rush? Tryin' to get rid of me?" He gave her a devilish grin that flipped her heart and made her tingle downstairs.

"Jack, I do have work to do."

"I know, I know. What else was there? Oh, you remember Lieutenant Hailey?"

"Yes."

"You mind if she comes to Cassie's party? I'm taking off on another trip on Monday morning, and she's coming with, so she's going to be at my place with Vala on Sunday. She can stay there if you don't want her to come, no big deal, but I figured I'd ask."

"No, it's not a problem."

"Great. Alright, Doc, I'll let you get back to work. See you Sunday."

"Take care, Jack."