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Daniel rushed up to the maitre-d, trying to smooth out his hopelessly creased sports jacket. The slight man before him, wearing what appeared to be a ridiculously expensive suit, raised an eyebrow, lips curving with disgust.

Great, Daniel thought embarrassed, thinking of his best suit languishing in the cleaners where he had taken it ages ago and neglected to retrieve. What a way to make a first impression on one of the preeminent linguists of his generation known for extreme seclusion. Only a handful of people had ever had the pleasure of working with him- he had taught for one year at Brown and finished the Akkadian translation before disappearing, resurfacing every now and again with a new paper or curatorial credit.

To wit, outside of Effington's offer, very few members of the archaeological community ventured to contact him ever since he cemented his reputation for bizarre theories and alternative explanations. Daniel liked to consider himself to be open-minded. They seemed to think he was a few steps away from clinically insane.

He had made the consummate mistake a few weeks earlier, trying to ferret out old memories that flitted back into his consciousness (the hazards of the descended, he supposed) by calling a former mentor at UCLA. Dr. Rosenfield had laughed when he learned the identity of the caller, said he had heard a rumor somewhere that Daniel had died and asked very solicitously after 'the little green men.'

It wasn't until he hung up that Daniel remembered that the man had always been an ass. That he himself knew the truth about his profession and that Rosenfield did not offered some consolation, but not nearly enough. He could remember a time when he was the department's golden boy- as could Rosenfield. The fact that he seemed to have degenerated into a punchline did not boast his ego and he hoped in vain that his mysterious colleague hadn't listened to the more outrageous tales that seemed to have colored his reputation since his tenure began at Stargate Command.

It's a business meeting, that's all, he said steeling himself, wishing he was still back on base. He had been swamped the past month, it was true, what with debriefing both SG-2 and SG-9 on two new and completely opposite civilizations. SG1 had been busy too: their most recent trip (home to the infamous first ever, and most likely last ever, race to and from the gate and its 100 yard distant DHD) having a plethora of new translations to add to a pile of to-be-translated work that would be inconceivable for him to translate even in ten lifetimes. His staff had been decimated during his long absence, partly through being terrorized by Jack and other assorted personnel, finding better (and less threatening to personal safety) opportunities elsewhere and the odd death-by-dismemberment. So he had been mostly on his own for all intents and purposes, and had burned the proverbial midnight oil for a few nights, missed a couple meals

It had been a conspiracy, originating with Dr. Frasier and Jack and spreading to Carter, Teal'c and General Hammond, who with firmness and fatherly concern mandated the two-day rest period, with the strictest of regulations: No translations. No research. No rocks, as Jack so eloquently put it, for 48 hours. They'd manage without his constant presence, they were sure.

At least Dr. Frasier hadn't mandated no coffee. Apparently, there still were benevolent gods out there.

And so, he finally got the chance to take Dr. Effington up on his request to meet him. His office had been sending him practically an email a week for almost four months with hints at needing his own scholarly advice. The emails curiously always ended with a request to meet in person with usually three dates from which to choose, the last one conveniently concurring with his own mandated time-off. Resuming his former role as Doctor Jackson, normal anthropologist (a completely different specimen than Doctor Jackson, SG-1, linguistic superman who saves the universe with his wits and a zat gun) was seeming more difficult than usual, especially on the heels of the Rosenfield phone call and in such surroundings as he now found himself.

Why the hell hadn't he proposed to meet at the museum? (Colorado Springs Art Center wasn't much, but it was a museum, at any rate. Home away from home. ) Instead, he was bumbling his way through the most expensive restaurant in their small town at his suggestion. He was already regretting allowing Effington to meet him on what he fondly now considered as his home turf and not neutral territory, like, say, the state of New York. Or maybe, a little more specifically, the Oriental Institute. Or Brown, or wherever it was that he called home.

He glanced around the dimly lit room, trying to guess which table might be his. The waiter came to an abrupt, almost military stop, causing Daniel to walk into him. "Sorry," he mumbled and followed the waiter's extended hand.

"Your table," the man said, expressionless.

"Dr. Jackson." His name rang out in low, dulcet tones and rounded British syllables. Daniel's attention immediately focused on the speaker. A slight woman immaculately tailored in a dark suit stared back at him, a ghost of a smile on her face. She leaned forward, slightly rising from her seat to proffer a hand to him.

"Wait, I'm sorry you're Dr. Effington?" he leaned over the table to shake her extended hand, more than a little shocked. "Sorry I'm a bit late got stuck in traffic." He settled into his chair and accepted a menu from the waiter. He opened it and quickly concealed his surprised countenance behind it.

"That's perfectly alright-" she said with a slight cough. "I've already ordered drinks" she gestured to the expectant waiter.

"Oh. Sorry. Uh" Ordering drinks? When was the last time he ordered drinks? "Wine is fine," he said, looking at her glass.

"Mademoiselle is partaking of a burgundy--" the waiter obliged, launching in what seemed to herald a longish delineation of the vintage before Daniel cut him off.

"That's good, fine-- thank you," he said again, his frustration creeping into his voice, desperate to hide behind the menu as the waiter disappeared.

Silence.

"Comment le saluroye, quant point ne le cognois?" she pronounced wryly. He lowered the menu to reveal his head just above the bridge of his nose.

"Je m'appelle Daniel Jackson," he confirmed confusedly, lowering the menu, and almost taking down his water glass with it. Self-consciously clearing his throat, he forced a laugh, steadying his glass with one hand.

"I meant myself. That is, you seem a bit surprised to see me."

"I was under the impression that you were a man," he said sheepishly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"It happens," she said with a shrug of her shoulders. "The price one pays for anonymity. And what did you think that the 'P' stood for?"

"Peter."

"That's a favorite. Someone surprised me with Monsieur Pascal once. However. It is very interesting, to me at least, to see you in person. I admit, to most people nowadays you're almost mythological. The Doctor Jackson, homo sapientimus."

He chuckled again, simultaneously curious and nervous now of what kind of gossip she would bring up. "Well, all the good stuff is true."

"Of course. Though it is very interesting to see that the news of your death has been so greatly exaggerated. Indeed, I hadn't supposed you were so young."

He managed a small, wary smile. "I am wise beyond my years."

"I believe that's an understatement, Doctor. As I understand it, you are a veritable collector of academic degrees."

"Well, thank you, I guess. And you can call me Daniel, by the way." She nodded abstractly and took a delicate sip from her water glass. "On the subject of praenomens, then, what does the P stand for?""

"Dr. Jackson, this is a professional meeting," she said pointedly, replacing her glass with delicate precision.

"Yes, so what? Still doesn't mean you can't call me Daniel-- unless you want me to call you 'P,' or is that presumptuous?" he remarked, keeping his tone light.

"Pricilla. And you can call me Dr. Effington," she said firmly.

He winced but quickly recovered to agree heartily. "Dr. Effington it is then."

She waited a beat, seemed to make up her mind about something, and after inhaling quickly, spoke again. "I realize this is a bit awkward."

"Yes," Daniel nodded his head vigorously, beginning to toy with the napkin in front of him, belatedly aware that his immediate agreement was no step forward to an easygoing direction. "I'm afraid that I haven't had time to keep apprised of things that is, I'm not exactly familiar with your current work"

"My erstwhile colleagues at Brown used to call me the Iron Lady. Surely you've heard about that."

"The Iron Lady?" He couldn't help but smile. The nickname conjured up images of someone elderly, gray hair coiled into a tight bun, the very essence of immutability: a New England scholar-spinster, the toughest living thing standing on two legs (aside from Teal'c, and he was an alien, technically). Someone like Catherine, really. It seemed somehow to fit the slight woman whose voice seemed to be much older than she was, not to mention explain the icy tension that seemed to exist between her and the university.

And all along, he had been expecting Effington, who from all accounts was the pride of Brown's ancient studies department, dreamed up as the British scholar extraordinaire, replete with graying beard and tweeds. And maybe, in moments of fancy, a pipe. Instead, he had gotten her. Young. Short-ish. Tolerably attractive. Seemingly harmless.

"Well, it's good that you haven't, I suppose. Strict rules, grey suits, and lectures that were tortuous, apparently. Students will be students, you know," she commented disdainfully and chose to focus on the stem of her wineglass.

They fell silent at the waiter's approach with Daniel's glass and ordered dinner. Their silence continued after the waiter left. Daniel suppressed an urge to fidget, and failing miserably, reached out a hand to toy with his fork.

"I still don't exactly know what I'm doing here."

She chuckled wryly. "You're going to eat the dinner you ordered, I assume. I apologize-- my assistant set this up," she said in a tone that did not bode well for the assistant. He gathered that they did not get along. "I have er, been out of the country for awhile. I'm afraid she had to make plans blind- I only have so many days well, my research is a bit spread out of late."

Her eyes darted around their dimly lit surroundings. He began to think that maybe she might be a bit uncomfortable too. "I had assumed we would meet in your office"

(Which would of course, be fine, all well and above board, if it weren't for the fact that the office was 50 feet underground in a secure military facility and filled with artifacts from alien planets. Hmmm, best not to say that, probably.)

"It's, uh, being cleaned."

"Ah," she said, sipping her wine and not seeming terribly convinced. (Well, yeah.) "And I gather that there is not much to your little town- delightfully out of the way and all that" (That's one way of saying 'middle of nowhere,' sure.) "Well, here we are," she pursed her lips and sat back in her chair, clasping her fingers together. "Let's make the most of it, shall we?"

They talked of her short tenure at Brown and his own days at Chicago and UCLA, his anthropology papers and her dabblings in symbology.

"Well, I suppose inter-disciplinary studies have their uses," he conceded with a smile after a long speech of hers promoting semiotics in art history, trying to piece together memories from his past that didn't include gate travel, Goa'ulds and classified documentation. Failing, he continued to ply her with questions.

"So, why teach at Brown? If symbology is really poised to become as influential as you say, if it could have such an impact on your research on early systems of writing, why not pursue it more fully? Harvard, if I'm not mistaken"

"Langdon still rules the roost there- I have no ambitions to outstrip the original 'preeminent American symbologist'," she smiled slightly, and looked away into the dim lights of the room, seemingly far away. The curious look lasted a millisecond before her dark eyes found his again, and she spoke, this time in a flat tone.

"Brown made me an offer that seemed too good to be true. It was." There was an awkward pause and she continued with a wry smile, "Not to mention the fact that no one else wanted to teach the poor ignorant novitiates. I used to give your first dissertation to my seminar students, actually."

"Really?" His eyebrows shot upwards out of sheer amazement. "I'm flattered. I honestly didn't think anybody thought it was worth the paper it's printed on anymore."

She shrugged non-committedly. "Maybe, maybe not. The exceptionally passionate denunciation of Budge, however"

"Passes academic muster?" he smiled at her reference.

"I have heard other professionals speak of it as the only sensible thing you ever wrote," she replied frankly.

The words, spoken as a statement of fact and without malicious intent, still stung. He scratched his upper lip absently. "So, then to get back to my original question: why are we here?"

She shifted in her seat slightly and looked away. "I've discovered something," she said hesitantly. "And I'm afraid that the consequences could be"

"Dire?" He felt a smirk appear. Melodrama always did make him sarcastic.

"Damning, controversial and possibly well, I don't know. So far it hasn't been well received. Most people think I'm just playing some sort of sick joke on them."

"Why contact me? I mean, not to say that I won't assist you in any way I can, it's just thatsurely there are other people" (People who aren't the mockery of academic institutions worldwide, that is.)

"The nature of the find is such that someone of your background and talents would appreciate it. Perhaps more so than others do."

"So this is because I'm crazy," he said with a rueful laugh, unwillingly recalling disparaging comments about his scholarship from his last public lecture.

Her lips curled into a small, tight smile. She cast her eyes down, intent on the tablecloth.

"Must've gone through a lot of trouble to find a crazy guy. I'm not exactly listed in the phone book anymore," he said, sitting back in his chair, watching the room start to slowly sway to and fro.

She looked up. Her eyes narrowed, but whether it was with amusement or with anger, he couldn't tell. "I know. I looked."

His eyebrows drew together in confusion and he opened his mouth to question her, interrupted by the arrival of the waiter with their dinner. He looked down at the small steak centered on his dish, surrounded on four sides by rice dumplings, almost pointing to the cardinal directions, topped with a delicately positioned sprig of parsley. Coulda got a steak at O'Malley's at least twice the size for the price they're asking, he thought testily, his frustration slowly increasing with each passing minute.

His stomach growled and he took another large drink from his wineglass. Clearing his throat and giving his glasses a nudge, he spoke again once the waiter had retreated. "Then how?"

"I believe you left contact information, more specifically, an email address, with one Dr. Steven"

"Raynor," he sighed. After Steven's personal encounter with the Goa'uld, he had thought it was in everyone's best interests that it be kept quiet. He had fooled Steven into believing he suffered from sunstroke when Osiris had put in his (her?) personal appearance but hadn't wanted to sever contact with his former colleague completely- just in case. Daniel had provided him with an email address- to use only under incredibly unusual circumstances (and he could trust that Steven, of all people, would keep the exact age of certain Egyptian artifacts a complete secret as nothing could hinder his own career than admit that Daniel Jackson, archaeology's punch-line, was right.)

"I will admit a certain degree of underhandedness in obtaining the address," she said, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. "Steven is fortunate enough to be published- have you read his latest book?"

"Ah, no."

"The Mysteries of the Queen's Chamber. Sensationalism not unlike supermarket novels, sprinkled with real archaeological finds- all of which Dr. Raynor attributes to himself. I hear there's a television special in the works."

"Steven," Daniel said, dispiritedly. Always looking for his 15 minutes of fame.

"Two of his 'great discoveries' happen to be mine. Hence the obligatory favor." She paused and looked at him for a moment over the top of her glasses' lenses. "You say you haven't been keeping up on current events- did you perhaps read a memoir by German archaeologist Herr Doktor Gunter Baegundorff, published last year?"

Daniel shook his head in the negative.

"Ever heard of him? No? That's not surprising, he didn't actually find anything. Ever. However, he still managed to have a long, illustrious career and spent practically every summer up until he turned 87 in Egypt."

"Not much of a memoir then?"

"Depends on your taste of fiction, I suppose. What makes it interesting is whom he was acquainted with historically. He knew practically everyone that dug anywhere in Northern Africa- especially in the Giza area. Who do you know was working there around, say, 1927 to 1929?"

"Oh, geez. Been a while Quibbell was writing his book on the Saqqara third dynasty tombs, the Emersons- the younger was working then, right? But more south. Near the cataracts, I think. Firth was just appointed Chief Inspector the Langfords were there"

"Langford- the American?" she said slowly, without looking up from her entrée.

"Yeah. Chicago school. He was an amateur, really," Daniel said evasively, "like your Dr. Baegundorff."

"Oh yes, Lang-ford. Right. Married a German woman, Anna was her name, wasn't it? who was a sketch artist for what was it, Tomb S2185?"

"Yes. In fact she and her small daughter Catherine were with him that season," he said cautiously.

"Catherine? Oh well, Anna Langford didn't have the master touch of Barton-Forbes, a shame really. Not to mention Sir Petrie himself, who made the visit to the Sphinx in 1928."

She complacently ate making casual comments about other German archaeologists, Petrie's wife, and other banal topics of conversation as Daniel waited with baited breath for her to explain herself and her bizarre methodology of questioning. She did not oblige him. His left eye began to twitch as his temper slowly grew. He had gone out of his way to oblige her and she ate complacently, still testing, still hesitant to divulge her information with a colleague with a tainted reputation.

Feeling slighted, he controlled a desire to lash out in fury. It was irrational, a tangent of self-directed anger for past indiscretions and insecurities. He swallowed his throat tight with emotion. He should really eat. His head, he was sure, wouldn't hurt so much if he ate. He pushed the steak slightly to one side with his fork experimentally, as if it was an alien specimen worthy of such intense study.

Eventually she placed her fork aside and made a small motion with her index finger. "Is there something wrong with your dinner?"

"Oh, no, no," he replied, topping off his wineglass again, this time not really caring when the room began to spin.

"You're not eating."

"How very observant of you."

"Well, there's no need to be rude. If you don't want to eat, fine, don't eat," she said, in her first flare of temper.

"Rude?" His control snapped. "Dr. Effington- let me be frank with you. I may not possess what is considered to be a flawless reputation within the ranks of the academic community but I have advanced beyond the pranks of elementary school- if you have reservations about telling me the exact nature of your 'find,' then fine. But don't make me waste my time with guessing games."

"You believe you're wasting your time?" she pursed her lips thoughtfully, her fork stopped in mid-air.

He sighed again. The first pangs of guilt struck him soundly. "I can't help you if you don't give me somewhere to start. What did you find?" he asked in more moderated tones.

She put down her fork on her plate with a clang. "Dr. Jackson, you may take it for granted that I managed to contact you, but I assure you, I do not. It is clear to me, as it is to everyone else for that matter, that you have secreted yourself away in this charming little hamlet all these years for a purpose."

"What are you saying?" he asked bristling again.

"That it is as difficult for me to trust you as you, I," she said coldly, crumpling up her napkin and tossing it to the side of her plate.

Daniel ran a hand over his face. His head was beginning to throb painfully, though more from the wine or the company, he wasn't yet sure.

"Look, why don't you eat something before you fall over?"

His hands fell away from his face and he looked down at his plate, his stomach turning over.

"I think I'm going to be sick."

"Oh, hell," she muttered, getting up and half-dragging him out of his seat as his complexion went slightly pale. "Come on, the bathroom's this way," she said, half-supporting, half-dragging him in the direction of the restrooms.

When he emerged from the men's room, having regurgitated half of a bottle of wine into the toilet, he scarcely looked much better despite his efforts to clean himself up afterwards. Sheepishly, he approached her, leaning against the opposite wall, her coat slung over her arm.

"I had them wrap up your dinner," she said, holding out a plastic bag.

"Look, Dr. Effington" he began apologetically.

"Dr. Jackson, please. I think we've both said enough for one night," she held up a hand to silence him. "Do you have someone you can call? To drive you home?"

"I really don't see"

"And there's no reason to worry about the bill- I've dealt with it. I'm sorry to have taken up your time," she ended coldly, shrugging into her coat. She made motions to leave but stopped in the middle of the hallway. After making some kind of hand gesture as if she was carrying on a debate with an imaginary figure, she turned around again.

"You'll call someone to drive you home?"

"Uh yeah. Yes, thank you," Daniel replied, somewhat befuddled.

She eyed him for a few moments over the rim of her glasses as if she were trying to resolve something and nodded her head. She turned on her heel again, slightly wobbling off balance, then straightening and striding to the doors, this time not looking back.

Daniel stood in the midst of the hallway, unheedful of the maitre-d's withering stare, trying to figure out what had happened to his evening. His head was still throbbing and he upbraided himself for his behavior. He wasn't really all that angry at her- she was just being conscientious about her research, as he would have been had he been in her situation.

He shook his head with disgust and immediately regretted it. Gripping the paneling of the hallway and willing the room to stop its whirligig motion, he determined that it probably wasn't a good idea to let himself drive. Too little sleep, too much wine Ruefully he found a payphone and dialed Jack's cell.

Daniel didn't like to think about what he was going to have to say about this.

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