When I posted the last chapter I finally got around to adding 'Jack?' to my favorite stories list. If you haven't read it yet, do so!

I want to thank Vanessa, Malaskor, Magda, Arathi, Courtknee, Josh (LFB), Dimac99, RT, katy-beth, Kiilee, minty, and Teri for giving me such wonderful feedback and the encouragement to write more. Thanks guys!
In the conference room before the briefing started, another brainstorming session was about to begin...

Daniel Jackson's mind was racing, in fact, it had been racing around and around in a mind-numbing whirl for the past twenty minutes.

Daniel wanted answers and he wanted to solve the new puzzle he had just been given.

Little did he know that the puzzle would only get more complicated in the next few hours. Instead of gaining the answers he sought, he was about to receive even more questions.

Hearing the door open, Daniel looked up to see Samantha Carter enter the room.

"Daniel, you're here early! What's the occasion?" Sam asked as she moved towards the computer to set up her slide show presentation for the briefing.

"Run out of coffee?" she continued glancing pointedly over at the percolating coffee off to the side of the room, before concentrating on the computer once more.

Daniel smiled slightly embarrassed as he replied, "That's part of it, but the fact of the matter is that I was just too preoccupied to try and get a couple more minutes of translating done before the briefing started."

He had wanted to get a head start on translating the writing that SG-15 brought back from P4X-639 two weeks ago. The problem was that he had had a large backlog of translations that had to be finished before he could even look at what SG-15 had taken pictures of.

'Oh well, at least I will be able to see the ruins for myself in just a matter of hours. They look really interesting. Maybe some form of Ancient Latin? If it is based on Latin, I wonder how differently their language evolved from our own...'

Sam looked back up at Daniel who was looking distracted again, and asked, "The Colonel?"

She too had been surprised and a little bit perturbed by the man's actions during breakfast.

He hadn't even finished his Fruit Loops; he'd just gotten up and left after answering Daniel's absurd question. 'Couldn't he have at least answered Daniel's last question before he left, the question of how?'

'How did he know the answer to that anyway? It's not like he's ever 'seriously' answered one of Daniel's off the wall questions before. Have there been any Native North American pictographs on the Simpson's lately?' she thought somewhat sarcastically.

'Eh, he probably picked it up on the Discovery channel...'

"Yeah," Daniel replied, "I just can't figure out how he caught those similarities in the pictographs when even I missed it."

'Yikes, now she was the one getting distracted.'

"It's just not right!" he continued.

"Did you notice how serious he was acting?" she asked.

"Yes, I noticed. Usually he's only like that when we are in a dangerous situation, off world..."

"... or when he's discussing fishing and hockey," Sam chipped in.

"You know..." Daniel mused, "If you exclude the dangerous situations, because the drawings are obviously no danger to us, the only option left is that he enjoys the subject of American archeology."

"That is, unless you can think of another reason for him to be so serious about the subject, Sam."

Both of them considered the feasibility of this being the reason for the leader of SG-1's odd behavior before Sam pointed out a major flaw in Daniel's reasoning.

In Daniel's attempt at rationalizing, he had forgotten a very important fact.

"If the Colonel enjoyed the topic why would he act so apathetically towards all of your explanations? He never talks about archeology and he seems to dislike hearing about your 'rocks'."

"Daniel, he was probably just trying to jerk our chains..."

That little reminder nearly caused him to disregard his previous train of thought, until his overactive brain came up with another solution to the problem.

"But what if he wasn't?" Daniel argued.

"Maybe Jack's ancestors were Native Americans that lived in the Virginia area, and Jack just wanted to know more about his family. Or maybe his parents taught him old family history when he was younger..."

"Yes," Sam slowly nodded, "that could explain his knowledge of the ruins. But..."

"But why would he hide it all this time?" Daniel continued, stumped.

"Exactly!" she confirmed still reluctant to believe.

Just then the door to the conference room opened again and in stepped the subject of their discussion.

And suddenly the room was silent.

'I guess that they are still in shock...' Dr. A. MacGyver, alias Colonel Jack O'Neill, thought.

And the silence deepened.

"Hey kids, how's it going?" Jack finally broke the long silence.

Daniel blinked.

Sam blinked.

Jack blinked, wondering why everyone was blinking so much. 'Was the air to dry or something?'

'He seems to be acting normal now. Maybe we were hallucinating earlier,' Sam and Daniel thought before discarding the idea.

Daniel, for once, decided to be blunt and get to the point instead of delivering his usual fifteen minutes of superfluous terms and explanations. After all General Hammond would be here any minute for the briefing.

"Jack, how did you know all that information about the North American pictographs?" he blurted out.

Now it was Jack's turn to blink again. 'Wow, that's one of the fastest times I've ever seen Danny get to the point. He doesn't seem too happy about it either, in fact he sounds kind of impatient. I wonder why?'

Sam moved to sit in her regular seat as she had finished setting up her presentation; she wanted to hear what the Colonel had to say as well.

"Well campers, it's like this..." Jack began but paused.

It wasn't like he was going to admit that he had learned most of what he knew about archeology from spending what little free time he used to have away from the Phoenix Foundation at various archeological dig sites around America.

At least he wasn't ready to do that yet. So what could he say?

"Well?" Daniel impatiently prompted.

Before Jack could formulate a reply, the door suddenly opened yet another time and General Hammond stepped through ready to begin SG-1's briefing over the scheduled trip to P4X-639.

"SG-1," he acknowledged them.

He didn't notice the aggravated almost angry look that Daniel sent him for interrupting what was about to become another tense silence as he was looking for the conspicuously absent form of one of the members of SG-1.

A murmur of "General" and "Sir" was the greeting he received from the rest of the team.

"Colonel," the General asked, "Do you know where Teal'c is?"

The Colonel in question hadn't been able to come up with anything overly complex in the past ten minutes which didn't include T going to the infirmary... he was seriously trying to avoid that because he was sure that Teal'c would have his revenge.

His alternative complex plan included multiple elevators malfunctioning and shutting down. But that would be a major inconvenience, a pain to set up, and it would be very suspicious as well. Not to mention that the people could just use the stairs instead. Neither were very reasonable plans.

So he had decided on a much simpler plan that had the advantage of being plausible.

"Sir, I'm not sure exactly where Teal'c is, but the last time I saw him he looked pretty tired," O'Neill replied while thinking, 'It is true though, both Teal'c and I are extremely tired of this time loop...'

"I think he might have missed his last Kel'no'Reem or something. Maybe that is what he is doing now so that he will be alert and at his best during the mission to P4X-639 today."

Daniel and Sam glanced at each other, they both knew that Colonel Jack O'Neill wasn't completely ignorant, but his unusual use of the proper planet designation just reminded them of their abortive attempt at questioning their leader.

"Alright Colonel, but I don't want this to happen again, it's irresponsible and inconvenient. Neither of which is usual behavior for Teal'c. Are you sure he's alright son?"

"As far as I know sir," O'Neill responded.

"Very well, let him know that I want to see him in my office ASAP."

'At least it's not the infirmary,' Jack thought with relief.

"Now Major if you would begin?" the General half questioned and half commanded.

"Yes sir."

Samantha Carter stood and moved to the computer consol and pressed a few keys. The display screen lit up to reveal a planet.

"This is P4X-639."

The screen changed at another click to illustrate a large sun schematic.

"Two weeks ago SG-15 took these images of solar activity on P4X-639. Analysis of the data indicates a steady increase in the intensity. Now if I'm right the explosions that we're witnessing her are just the precursor of an exponentially greater violent ejection."

"My suggestion is that we set up a remote observatory to record the effects that the corona mass emission has on the planet."

"Now..."

Before she could continue, or MacGyver could start asking his questions, the sound of the gate opening could be heard along with the wailing klaxons.

"Unscheduled off-world activation," sounded the voice of the gate technician over the base's intercoms.

Well, this chapter kind of took me by surprise... I was just going to go strait to the briefing and start there. Then I decided that I wanted Sam and Daniel to be in the room before Jack/Mac came in... all the sudden their conversation somehow turned into half of the chapter!

I hope to get through the rest of the briefing in the next chapter, and then we can get to the really interesting parts. -big grin-

I want to thank everyone who has been mostly patient in waiting for me to get this chapter done, I planed on having it done a lot earlier, but real life popped up and kept me busy for a long time, sorry.

Anyway I hope you have enjoyed this so far, I want to know what you guys think.
Review please!

Candy-Dawn
(08-08-04)