A/N: Well I couldn't possibly give you SUCH a short chapter and not post more could I!? Also the time differences and flight times are close to what they should be – but I'm not POSITIVE about them, and really I'm too lazy to be bothered researching that stuff- so they're an approximate.
"Are you trying to tell me that Jason Blank is a Goa'uld?" Major General George Hammond asked.
"Yes, sir," Jack said.
They all looked up as Major Samantha Carter entered the room. "What did I miss?" she asked, sitting down opposite Daniel and next to Jack.
"You know that singer, Jason Blank?" Jack asked her.
"Yeah, I love his new song…" Sam said. 'Why?"
"You like his song?" Jack repeated.
"Colonel," Hammond said.
"Sam, he's a Goa'uld," Daniel said.
She looked over at him, surprised. "What? What makes you think that?"
"He has glowing eyes," Teal'c added.
"Are you sure that it wasn't special effects or something?" Sam asked. "It's quite possible to make someone's eyes glow using special effects."
"It looked quite real," Teal'c replied.
"Why would a Goa'uld be stupid enough to make his eyes glow in public?" Sam asked.
"It was on a video clip…it could've been special effects," Daniel said. "But it wasn't…"
Sam looked at her fellow-team members. They seemed so convinced that one her of her favourite singers was an alien. Her enemy.
"I don't believe you," she stated.
"That's why we're going to see his next concert…in Australia," Jack said.
"In Australia?" Sam repeated. "We're going all the way to Australia to find out if my favourite singer is an alien?"
"We go to other planets to find out if people are aliens…" Daniel added.
"He's a threat to national security," Hammond said. "We have to do something about him…you're my top officers."
"Off to see the wizard," Jack grinned. "The wonderful wizard of Oz."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Two days later the four of them stepped of a plane at Melbourne Airport in Australia.
"Oh…it's hot," Sam stated.
"Ya think?" Jack replied.
They had come from the middle of winter to the boiling hot weather of an Australian February. Teal'c didn't seem to feel the heat and Daniel had spent a year of his life living on Abydos and numerous years before that inhabiting places like Egypt.
But for both Jack and Sam it was a completely different environment.
They headed towards the luggage pick-up area and waited while watching loads of bags going round and round on the conveyer belt.
"This is boring," Jack stated.
"What hotel are we staying in?" Sam asked.
"Some place in the city, South Bank," Jack said. "Called Mountain Place."
"Mountain Place?" Daniel asked. "In the middle of the city? Last time I was in Melbourne there were no mountain's in the middle of the city…actually anywhere near the city."
"It's a name Daniel," Jack said.
"He's not a Goa'uld," Sam said, looking around to make sure no one could hear them.
"Carter, his eyes glowed!" Jack said.
She hadn't stopped defending her favourite singer throughout the whole flight, all fourteen hours of it.
"On a video clip…that could be special effects," Sam argued. "I don't see why we flew all the way out here just because of some special effect some singer did on his video clip."
"Carter you didn't see, it looked a hell of a lot like…" Jack stopped as a woman came and stood next to them, within ear shot, and gave him a funny look when he stopped halfway through his sentence. "…it looked a hell of a lot like George and Janet were kissing."
Daniel's head snapped around. "Please don't say anything like that again."
Jack grinned in his lopsided way and Teal'c raised an eyebrow. He pulled his baseball cap further down, in case anybody saw his forehead.
"Here they come," Sam said, pulling her bag off the conveyer belt.
The other three got their bags and they finally made it out the doors to the welcome area where at least a hundred people were standing, waiting for friends or relatives. There was no one to greet them, as far as anyone was concerned they weren't in Australia, they were off-world or something, but not in Australia. They walked out to get a taxi. There was taxi's lined up all along the outside of the building, all yellow with the same checked stripes on their sides.
Jack walked up to the nearest one. "I got four passengers who need to get to the city."
"Sure mate," the taxi driver said, jumping out and going to the boot of the car and opening it.
Jack dumped his bags in there and then the taxi driver took Daniel's stuff and put it in there, followed by Sam's and finally Teal'c's. It almost didn't fit. Teal'c climbed in the front seat and the other three squashed in the back.
"So where about are you heading?" the taxi driver asked.
"South Bank," Jack replied. "Mountain Place Hotel."
"Oh yeah, I know it," he said.
They sat in a sort of awkward silence, none of SG-1 wanted to risk revealing anything to the taxi driver, and none of them could think of a normal topic of conversation to have.
"Do you want the radio on?" the taxi driver asked after a few minutes of silence.
No one complained so he turned it on.
"You're listening to 101.9 Fox FM, the best new music," the ad for the station said.
The next song started playing.
"This is it!" Sam said, suddenly speaking up.
"This is what?" Daniel asked.
"The song," Sam said.
"Oh, the one we saw on TV the other night?" Daniel questioned.
"Well I don't know, I wasn't there…but this is Jason Blank's newest song," Sam said.
"And you like this song, why?" Jack questioned.
"I like the words," Sam said.
"I do not understand your liking of this song MajorCarter," Teal'c said.
"Whoa, you're a Major? As in military?" the taxi driver suddenly spoke up.
"Yeah…" Sam said, glaring at Teal'c.
"What branch?" the taxi driver asked.
"Air Force," she replied.
"So you're all US Air Force?" he continued questioning.
"Just me and Carter," Jack replied. "Murray and Daniel work with us, but they're not part of the military."
"So what're ya doing all the way out here in Australia?" the taxi driver asked.
"Classified," Sam replied, automatically.
"Cool," he said. "Always wanted to carry important passengers, most important people go to Sydney though, it kinda sucks."
"Oh we're not that important," Jack said.
"Not out saving the world then?" the taxi driver joked.
There was a pause.
"Saving the world gets so repetitive…we're just on holidays," Jack joked.
The awkward silence fell over the car again.
"So…Carter…what's this song called?" Jack asked.
"I'm not sure…the album's called Feeling Alive, I was going to buy it, but it only came out a couple of days ago in the US and I haven't really had the chance…and it doubt it'll be out in Australia yet," Sam said.
"It's called Forbidden," Daniel answered.
Jack and Sam both leaned over to stare at him.
"How do you know that?" Jack asked.
"I did my research before we came here," Daniel said.
The song finished and the radio announcer came back on. "That was Jason Blank with his new hit single, Forbidden. If you'd like to see Jason Blank live, for free, be at Chadstone Shopping Centre, the fashion capital, tomorrow at two pm! See you there!"
Not long after that they arrived at the hotel. They unpacked their stuff and Jack paid the taxi driver in Australian money. They dragged their stuff into the foyer of the hotel and Jack approached the desk, where a short, Asian man was standing.
"Hello, I'm Jack O'Neill, booked two rooms…one room for three people and one single," Jack said.
"Ah, yes, hold on," the man said, typing something into the computer. "Jack O'Neill yes?"
"Yeah," Jack said.
"Room 713 and 712, they're opposite each other," he handed over the key. "On the third floor swap to the other elevator, that should take you all the way up."
"Thank you," Jack said.
They dragged their bags up to their rooms and the three males unpacked in their room while Sam made herself home in her own. About half an hour after they'd arrived there was a knock on Sam's door.
"Come in," she said, from her position in a chair reading her science magazine.
"Hey Carter, wanna come down for dinner now?" Jack asked. "Daniel and Teal'c have already headed down."
"Yeah, sure…what's the time, sir?" she asked, putting down her magazine.
Jack looked at his watch. "Uh…3am."
"What time is that in Australia?" Sam asked, smiling.
He shrugged. "Around 8pm…dinner time."
Sam got up and walked to the door.
"You got a nice view," Jack stated, looking out her window.
"Yes, sir…I do don't I?" Sam said, looking out her window for the first time. "That's Flinders St Station."
"Nice station," Jack stated.
"I remember coming here once with my family when I was a kid, my Mom took me there and we took a train to some beach far away," Sam said.
Jack didn't reply. Sam had never mentioned her mother to him before, he didn't know what to say.
"I'm hungry," Sam said, breaking the silence. "Let's eat."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
An hour later they were still sitting around the table laughing. Suddenly Daniel yawned.
"Gosh I'm tired," he said, looking at his watch. "It's 9pm, I guess it's safe to sleep now," he said.
"It's 4am by my watch," Jack said.
"I think you need to change the time on your watch Jack," Daniel said, yawning again. "OK I'm going to bed."
"I am going to…" Teal'c looked around to make sure no one was listening. "Kel'No'Reem."
"I'm going for a walk," Jack announced. "Going to see what there is to do along this bank."
"I'll come, sir," Sam said. "Just let me grab my jacket from upstairs."
Five minutes later she was back downstairs, having grabbed her jacket and a bag.
"OK, let's go," she said.
The two of them made their way down to the main bank of the river. They walked past a shopping centre where there was a whole lot of people eating out. Actually the whole bank seemed to be full of restaurants and café's.
"Busy for a Thursday night," Jack commented.
"It's Friday, sir…remember we went forward in time," Sam replied.
"Ah, I see," Jack said. "Trust you to remember that."
Sam smiled and looked back out at the restaurant boats. "I wonder how much they cost."
"Probably hundreds of dollars," Jack smiled. "This is a nice change from going off-world isn't it?"
"It feels normal," Sam said.
"So this Jason Blank guy…why do you like his song so much?" Jack asked.
"I…I guess I can relate to the words of his song," Sam said.
"What kind of words?" Jack asked.
"Just…words," she said.
They kept walking, in silence. It was cold now, even though it had been extremely hot earlier that day, it had cooled off quickly since the sun had set, especially considering how unused to the heat they were.
"Hey, what's that?" Sam asked, nodding towards a large, white tent that was standing next to the road.
"Dunno," Jack shrugged. "Let's go see."
They walked closer to the tent.
"It's an ice-skating rink," Sam smiled widely. "They have ice-skating rinks in Australia…in this weather."
"How unusual," Jack said. "I haven't ice-skated for so long."
"Neither have I…basically stopped doing that kind of thing since I joined the SGC," Sam said.
"I haven't been ice-skating since…" Jack stopped. "Last time I went was with Charlie and Sarah."
"Oh," Sam said.
Suddenly, standing there in the dark, on the side of the river bank, staring at the lighted up ice-skating rink, Sam felt like she had to do something to comfort him. Without even thinking she slipped her hand into his and squeezed it, just in a friend comforting a friend way. He looked shocked and turned to face her.
"Just remember I'm here for you OK, sir?" she said, adding the 'sir' after careful consideration.
"Thanks, Carter," he said.
She let go of his hand. "Let's go and see what those lights in the distance are…they look interesting."
"It's Crown Casino," a teenager butted in. "Sorry, I shouldn't be eavesdropping…"
"That's OK," Sam said. "What exactly are the lights?"
"They're fountains," the teenage girl said. "They have pretty cool stuff over at Crown, you should go check it out."
"Thanks," Jack said.
The girl disappeared into the ice-skating rink.
"Let's go and see, sir," Sam said.
"Sounds interesting," Jack said. "We'll go see it…and then tomorrow we're gonna go and see your favourite singer at Chadstone."
REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!!
I thought it was about time SG-1 gave Australia a little visit – especially Melbourne – considering WE NEVER GET STARGATE ON TV!! *grumbles and says something mean about ch7* Anywayz there'll be more soon!! Thanks for reading and PLEASE REVIEW!