xxxx

"Dean!" Sam turned towards the door before his brother had even opened it, glad he was finally there. "I need Dad's journal," he finished as the door cracked open.

Dean stood in the doorway for several seconds, blinking. "O… K. Sure. Did you put some kind of psychic tracker on me when I wasn't looking?"

"Dean," Sam sighed, taking the proffered leather book, "You're my brother. If you're within ten yards, I know."

"Right." Dean spent another moment eyeing his brother skeptically, ignoring the two who were watching in bemusement. "So, what d'ya need me to do?"

"Did Missouri send Black Salt?"

"Uh…" Dean pulled out the bag that the psychic had given them and opened it, "I don't see any."

Sam sighed sharply, raising a hand to his forehead. "All right, all right. Hyssop?"

"Yeah—wait. How can you possibly substitute hyssop for Black Salt?"

"You can't, Dean," Sam gave his brother a look that said that was the stupidest question he'd ever heard. "It's an entirely different ritual."

The elder Winchester blinked, then shrugged. "OK. Sure. Now what?"

Sam paged through the journal and flipped it around, presenting a carefully illustrated page to his brother and indicating the text underneath the diagram. "You need to set this up, but be careful. I've locked it out of this room and if the three of us," he indicated himself and the two confused SG-1 scientists, "Go to Daniel's office, we should get the thing's attention off of you for long enough."

Dean didn't like it and Sam knew he didn't like it, but broad shoulders slumped in resignation. He wouldn't protest.

Dean grabbed the journal and arranged everything he would need, "Does it matter where?"

Sam shook his head, ignoring the muted voices of Samantha and Daniel in the background, "The hall is fine, so long as you keep people from walking over it."

A slight nod followed and Sam moved for the door, ushering the two (mildly protesting) scientists towards the door.

Dark eyes gave him pause as he reached for the handle.

"Sam... be careful."

Sam gave his brother a reassuring smile before vanishing with his two self-assigned charges.

xxxx

Jack snapped a final picture of the statue with a flourish that was not only completely unnecessary, but likely detrimental to the quality of the photo. Fortunately, it was a distance shot he was taking that really wasn't going to be useful for Daniel's translations at all.

"I believe we are finished, O'Neill," Teal'c's voice cut across the rubble-strewn 'clearing'.

The man almost, almost pouted. "But I was just starting to have fun!"

"Indeed," Teal'c kept his face expressionless despite a stirring of amusement for the Colonel's childish antics. He deeply respected O'Neill, both as a person and as a warrior, but there was no denying that the man had a penchant for practical jokes and occasional childish behavior. "We should return to Earth so that Daniel Jackson may find a way to rid the base of our unseen visitor."

Jack blinked, "Right. Let's go do that."

xxxx

A short chapter—although all the chapters in this story are short—and I have an admission. I'm not really pulling up a bunch of inspiration; I could use someone to bounce ideas off of. Anybody willing to put up with that?