The morning after I awake to find Daniel watching me. "Good morning." I say smiling.
"Good morning." Daniel says smiling.
"How did you sleep?"
"Well. You?"
"Just wonderfully. How's your shoulder?"
"Better." He says, I smile and kiss him. "Do you have clothes in your car?"
"Yeah."
"All right. I'll go get them in a little while."
"Okay." I say, tracing a line of a bruise on his shoulder gently with a fingertip. "What now?"
"I'm not sure. Breakfast?"
"Want me to cook?"
"Only if you want to." He says, I sigh and move closer, snuggling into him. Daniel kisses my forehead and I look up at him smiling. "I love you."
"I love you too." I say, without hesitation. "And I could stay like this all day."
"Unfortunately, we have to work today." Daniel says, seemingly genuinely disappointed.
"When?" I ask, noticing his clock.
"We should leave by seven thirty."
"Whoops." I say. "It's a quarter past eight."
"Uh… yeah. Whoops. We should get going. General Hammond had SG-1 scheduled for another mission at noon." Daniel says, sitting up and rolling out of bed.
"All right." I say, as I roll out of bed. "Do you want to get in the bathroom first?"
"Yeah. Then I'll get dressed and get your things from your car."
"Sounds like a plan." I say, he kisses me and goes into the bathroom, I look around for a robe or something to wear.
"I'll be back soon." Daniel says, coming out of the bathroom a little damp, but fully dressed.
"I'll try not to destroy the kitchen." I joke as he heads out. I'd been following him to his front door and he smiles at me and leaves. The resounding click of the front door closing behind Daniel seems to echo through the apartment as I realize he's taken my keys and my cell. I take a quick shower, put something on, and go out to the kitchen to see what kind of food Daniel keeps around. I find milk, eggs, orange juice, wheat bread, and a few other condiments. "Typical." I mumble, taking out the eggs, butter and bread. Daniel walks back in the door with my red gym bag as I'm preparing to make the eggs. "Hey." I say, setting the greased frying pan on the stove as I turn to greet him.
"Hey, uh, I hope I got the right bag." Daniel says, setting the bag on the counter.
"Yep. How do you like your eggs?"
"Oh, nothing too complicated."
"Don't be intimidated to try to challenge me." I say teasingly. "You certainly weren't last night." He flushes and smiles, and I laugh.
"All right; scrambled without the yokes."
"No problem." I say, breaking an egg over the sink and separating it. "How's your shoulder?"
"Little stiff, actually. How's your foot?" He says, and I dump the yoke down the sink and put the whites in a bowl, I get another egg and repeat the process.
"It's okay, I'm actually surprised it hasn't bruised." I say, going for another egg as Daniel wraps his arms around me from behind in a tight hug. I look up and back at him smiling and he kisses me. The phone rings and the answering machine picks up while I cook and Daniel drinks coffee.
"Daniel! I don't know what you've been doing all morning, but you need to haul ass and get here! Call me back for the details." Jack's voice says over the answering machine.
"Oh crap." I mutter under my breath. "Better call him back. General Hammond might've moved up the mission."
"Right." He says, making no move for the phone.
"Daniel," I say, putting his eggs on a plate and starting my own scrambled eggs. "C'mon, you call Jack and I'll finish up here. You can tell him honestly that it will take you forty-five minutes for you to get there." I say when he still doesn't go for the phone.
"All right." He says, kissing the top of my head. Daniel calls Jack, apologizes for his - and my - absence blaming it on 'personal reasons', and pours another cup of coffee while I finish making my eggs and bring everything into the dining room. We eat breakfast quickly, then I get dressed. I give Daniel a quick massage to loosen up his shoulder and we head down to the car. We get to the base, through security, and down to the conference room within the forty-five minutes I had said.
"Dr. Jackson, Ms. Tyler, nice of you to join us." General Hammond says, as we walk in.
"Sorry." I say, really thinking that at least we're here.
"Just don't let it happen again." General Hammond says, as Daniel and I take seats across form each other.
"Right, so what's going on?" Daniel says.
"The To'Kra have informed us that Apophis is returning to M-5649 to investigate the death of Ah'dreen, the Gao'uld stationed there." General Hammond says. "Seems we stumbled into Apophis's ore processing plant."
"So we're supposed to destroy the plant?" Sam asks.
"Yes." General Hammond says.
"All right, any ideas how?" Jack asks.
"No." A woman says with a watery voice. She's tall, dark blonde, brown eyes with a nice tan and rounded features wearing a long skirt and a little top, and sandals. "I apologize for my tardiness."
"Quite all right." General Hammond says, as the woman comes in to stand near me.
"We have not met. I am Anise." She says, her voice still watery. "And Frejya." She says, her voice now normal.
"Kelly Alia Tyler." I say, after standing up.
"Well met." Anise says, and we sit down. "It is necessary to destroy the entire compound instead of just the power generator."
"Waitaminute. We're going to blow up the entire compound?" I ask, grinning.
"Yeah. Problem?" Jack says.
"Nope. My dad sets up pyrotechnical stunts for the movies. I used to help him." I say relaxing.
"So you know a thing or two about bombs." Sam says with a smirk.
"Oh yeah." I say, smiling as I remember working on 'The Matrix'. "Enough to know you're going to need a lot of power to destroy that place."
"I'm not lugging around a bomb through that forest." Jack says, and everyone goes silent.
"Well, this is probably rather off the wall, but how 'bout plastique?" I say, a few minutes later.
"Doesn't pack much of a punch." Sam says.
"True, but it's easy to carry. That's why I was considering more than one, and maybe not just plastique." I say, thinking about precisely what I can add to a plastique to give it an extra kick.
"What else could you add?" Daniel asks.
"The combinations are endless. Adding some extra kerosene to the mix seemed to work best." I say.
"Weren't you going for visual effect, though?" Jack asks.
"No, not always." I say. "Well over half the time we were really blowing things up."
"Cool." Sam says.
"So you think you can blow this up easily?" General Hammond asks.
"Depends on what I'm blowing up." I say.
"What do you mean?" Anise asks.
"Well, do the Gao'uld use cement or granite or what? I'd hate to get in there and have a bomb that would barely chip the paint." I say.
"Usually we would use C-4, but we would need quite a few of those." Sam says.
"Plastique will work, though." Jack says.
"Good." I say.
"All right. Dismissed." General Hammond says, we all get up from the table as he leaves the room.
"Hey, Kel', can you help me with something?" Sam asks, walking up beside me in the corridor.
"Depends. What's up?" I say, hitting the elevator button.
"You didn't come back last night."
"Ah." I say, immediately getting it. "So?" We get on the elevator as the doors open.
"So! What happened?"
"We had dinner, a little wine, and went back to his place." I say as Sam presses a button.
"Oh?" She asks, smiling, like my little sister Deanna used to when I talked with her about guys. "I have a feeling you didn't sleep on the couch."
"Why do you say that?"
"Are you denying it?"
"No, but I'm not confirming it either. I'm just curious."
"Oh, well, I hate to mention it, but I think he bit you."
"What! Where?" I say, laughing.
"There." Samantha says, brushing a spot on my shoulder, near my neck, with a finger. "Never really pegged Daniel as a biter."
"Guess I'll just have to cover it up." I say, with a shrug as the doors open in front of us.
"Things got a little wild last night, then?" Samantha asks, as we are walking down the corridor.
"No, not really." I say, opening my door and going into my quarters. "Is that all you wanted? To see if Daniel and I got drunk and slept together?" I ask, keeping my voice - and my amusement - in control.
"Well, no, but it's the thing I wanted out of the way first." Sam says, as I get a shirt and a pair of cargo pants out of the dresser.
"I see." I say, looking around for socks. "Do you mind if I just change in the bathroom?"
"Oh, okay." Sam says, and I go into the bathroom, leaving the door open a crack. "So did you?"
"Get drunk, no. I'm not confirming or denying that we had sex, though."
"All right. So which sister did you let in on your love life?"
"Really, none of them. Juliette is four years younger, and she's the oldest of my younger sisters. My older sister was never really any fun. Besides, I usually had an easier time of being friends with guys anyway."
"So who did you talk about guys with?"
"My best friend's sister."
"Why not your best friend?" Samantha asks, as I give up on finding any better socks than the ones I am wearing and put on my good boots.
"Because what's the fun in talking to a guy about a guy?" I say.
"Oh." Sam says. "You should really wear the combat boots."
"No. I get better traction in these."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Good to go." I say, as Sam and I leave my room. "What else is there?"
"Well, I wanted you to help me set up the plastique."
"All right." I say, and Sam leads me to another area of weapons storage. Halfway through picking up what we'd need, I realize that I left something in my quarters. I tell Sam that I'll be right back and bolt back to my quarters to strap on my knife. I return just as quickly and we finish picking up what we'll need for the plastique. We set everything up in the labs so that we just have to place it, activate it, and go. Samantha and I go to the cafeteria for a quick coffee and meet up with Jack and Daniel.
"Hey." I say, warmly, as Sam and I sit down across from them.
"Good to go?"
"Yeah, everything's set." Sam says.
"Great." Jack says. "Are we gonna need padded suitcases?"
"Uh, no sir." Sam says.
"Great. Daniel, I suggest you get to your translations sometime before we leave." Jack says as he gets up from the table.
"Translations?" I ask.
"Yeah, I took a few shots of some control panels before I was caught." Daniel says.
"Want help?" I ask.
"Sure." Daniel says.
"All right. I'll see you two later." Samantha says, getting up from the table.
"Yeah." Daniel says. "Listen, about last night, I really don't think we should advertise the… depth, of our relationship, at least, not at work."
"Shoulda thought of that before you bit me. I didn't notice until Sam pointed it out."
"Didn't you ask me to?"
"Evidently. Don't worry about it, my dad taught me three things; how to blow up a car, jump off a building, and to cover up what I create."
"What does that mean?"
"I can make it appear as if you have a bruise, and I can cover up a real one." I say, finishing off my coffee. "Now, 'bout those translations."
"Yeah, they're back in my office." He says, and I nod. "Shall we?" He stands and I look him in the eyes, trying to see how much he wants to hide.
"Indeed." I say, standing. Daniel leads me out of the cafeteria to his office. "Do you spend a lot of time here?"
"Yeah." Daniel says, searching through a stack of photos. "Why?"
"I just figured out why your place is so neat." I say, looking around at the stacks of books, papers, and photos all askew.
"Oh, uh… all right. Take a look at this." He says, handing me a photo.
"Alright, what am I looking at?" I ask, looking over the photo of some control panel.
"Control mechanisms for a set of doors. Can you read it?"
"Of course, but now it makes sense." I say, glancing up and smiling at the surprise on his face. "Look, 'open', 'lock', 'unlock', it makes almost no sense until you know it's attached to a door, but what's so hard about reading the panel, anyway?"
"Nothing, I just wanted to see if you could read it." He says, handing me a few more. "Where did I bite you?"
"Now that I think about it, against the doorframe,during that second round..." I say, looking up from the photos only when he went quiet. "Oh, uh, you meant… oh. Um - on my shoulder. Near my neck." I say, all the blood draining from my face when I see his expression and returning as I flush. "One hell of a night." I say with a chuckle.
That's when we hear the pen drop.
We both turn towards the door to see Dr. Janet Fraiser picking her pen up off of the floor. Neither of us can believe our eyes as we both try to figure out what to stammer out to explain to the good doctor.
"You're both civilians, off base, and it's none of my business. I'll just pretend I never heard that." Dr. Fraiser says, putting me at ease.
"Thank you." I say, breathing again.
"I'll see you later." Dr. Fraiser says, walking away, I nod and look to Daniel.
"Daniel? You okay?" I ask, walking across the room to touch his arm.
"What?" Daniel asks, as if he just woke up.
"Are you all right? You seemed to zone out."
"Oh, I'm fine. Uh… Dr. Fraiser wasn't just in here was she?"
"Sorry love, she was." I say, holding his arm. "Hey, look! Work!" I say, trying to distract him as I see he's about to wigg out.
"Right, uh…" He mumbles as I hand him what he had been looking at. "Can you make any sense of this?"
"Yes." I say, slowly. "'Weapons, West Parameter. Ground'."
"Thanks." Daniel says, starting to turn away.
"What's wrong?" I ask, my voice carefully neutral. "The truth." I say sternly, seeing that he's about to deny the problem. "Please?" I say more softly.
"I'm just not used to having half the base following my love life as if it were a soap opera." Daniel says.
"Half the base?" I ask, and he nods in response. "Well, at least we're the most popular show." I mutter.
"What! Alia…"
"Daniel! I say, mocking his tone. "I sincerely doubt its half the base. I'll give you ten people - maybe, but even if half the base did know, I doubt they'd care." I say softly.
"Really?"
"Yep."
"How are you so sure?"
"Big family?" I say with a shrug. "ER faculty socialization might have something to do with it as well, since I can honestly say I've heard worse."
"What's worse?"
"Once one of my superiors got caught while his wife was giving him oral in the men's room."
"What!"
"His hand was on the emergency alarm. Three nurses, his best friend, and I all went running in there."
"You're serious?"
"Yuh-huh." I say smiling and nodding. "Another time a resident and a med student got caught making out in radiology because she bit him and her sweater was inside out."
"Wow. Anyone get caught anywhere public?"
"I don't think so." I say, recalling my little encounter. "We had a pediatrician and a head nurse who were living together, though. They got really wild sometimes but never in the hospital."
"Okay, you made your point." Daniel says, as I look over the pictures he hands me.
"I haven't even started on the stuff that went on at the law firm I worked at, or the LA ER, the Boston high school… should I continue?" I say, smiling as he laughs.
"That's all right." Daniel says.
"Hey, what's that?" I ask, pointing at a reflection in a panel in the picture.
"That would be… about to shoot me." Daniel says, looking where I'm pointing.
"Whoever it is, is in the way." I say.
"Work around it." He says, thoughtfully. "Alia, how can you read this so easily?"
"I'm not sure. It vaguely reminds me of ancient Egyptian, so I just started mixing things up in my mind until it made sense just you try to get me to read straight modern Egyptian right now, though. Am I getting it wrong?"
"No. I was just curious because you got it so much quicker than I did."
"Oh, all right." I say.
"Drop everything." Jack says, coming into the room, and Daniel put our photos down. "Let's go."
"Are we going to develop a strategy on the way?" I ask, as Daniel and I meet up with Sam in the hall and the three of us follow Jack to the elevator.
"Not this time Kelly." Jack says, as we approach the elevator and Jack pushes the button. "We all learned last time precisely how well you follow orders."
"Not 'all'." Daniel says, looking to me. "What exactly happened while I was out?"
"No clue." Jack says.
"All I know is Kelly got mad." Sam says, as Daniel looked to her.
"I got mad, attempted to keep my temper in check, tried to simply stall until someone could get you out, failed, killed the guy shooting at me." I say, mildly uncomfortable, when he looked to me.
"Oh." Daniel says.
"You actually tried?" Sam asks.
"Well, yeah. I think I intended to go in and rip his throat out. Instead I let him shoot at me for a little bit." I say.
"Then you cut his head off." Jack says, sarcastically.
"You - did?" Daniel asks.
"Yeah." I say, quietly, showing my lack of pride and lack of shame. The elevator doors open on our level and we all get off.
"We need to talk." Daniel whispers as we take up the rear.
"Now?" I whisper to him.
"No, just soon."
"All right. First opportunity?" I whisper, and he nods as we enter the 'gate room.
All the alarms were already going off as we picked up our packs. We checked them over and I noticed that Sam and I didn't have any of the plastique, only C-4.
"Hey, someone does have the plastique, right?" I ask.
"Yeah." Jack says, strapping on his pack. "Teal'c and Daniel will be setting it up."
"All right." I say, zipping up my jacket before putting on my pack.
"Problem Kelly?" Sam asks.
"No, not at all." I say, mildly surprised.
"Chevron seven, engaged." A man's voice says.
"See you on the other side." Jack says, walking through the now fully active 'gate alongside Daniel and Teal'c.
"Tylers don't die nicely." I mumble to myself, before stepping through the 'gate with Sam.
Stepping through the other end of the 'gate for the second time was much the same as the first time - only colder.
"Are you okay?" Daniel asks, a little while later, as the five of us are traipsing through the woods.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just can't wait till Christmas." I say softly.
"Why?" Daniel asks.
"For the past five years, my mom's given me a trip to somewhere warm." I say softly.
"Cold?" Daniel asks.
"Yeah, but don't take off your jacket." I say.
"Okay. I don't think I could anyway." Daniel says, and I smile a little. He drops his arm around my shoulders, draws my a little closer, and I wrap an arm around his waist.
"Odd question," I chirp softly, a little while later.
"Go ahead." Daniel says.
"Do you mind if I occasionally call you Dan?" I ask quietly.
"No, not really…" Daniel says, slowly.
"Warned you it was a weird question." I say softly.
A while later we have to turn on our flashlights, and a little while after that we decide to set up camp. This time, Samantha and I are sent out for wood since we already have food.
"So what's the deal with you and Daniel?" Sam asks a little bit later.
"What do you mean?" I ask in return.
"Well, it's obvious that you're together, but he seems to be, I don't know…"
"Drifting? I noticed. I'm not sure what is going on with him, though."
"Are you worried?"
"I'm not sure. Should I be?"
"No…"
"Good. I don't worry well." I say.
"Think we have enough?" Sam asks, hefting her little bundle of wood.
"Yeah, let's go." I say and we easily make our way back to camp.
"Run into Dalarek?" Jack asks, as Sam and I walk back into camp.
"No, why?" Sam says, as I set up the fire pit.
"We did." Daniel says, pointing to an arrow in a tree.
"Did he send another note?" Sam asks, as I light the fire.
"No." Daniel says.
"He shot at me." Jack says dejectedly.
"Why?" I ask, sitting down beside Daniel, near the fire.
"I don't know. Target practice, maybe?" Jack says, sarcastically.
"No. There would be a real reason. Like his people think we are some sort of threat." I say easily. "Don't ask me 'why' or 'how' because I don't know."
"Okay." Sam says, sitting to my other side.
"Woah. Something Tyler doesn't know. I'm scared." Jack says.
"I never claimed to know everything…" I say surprised at his assumption. "I just keep my mouth shut when I don't know something."
"Makes sense." Sam says.
"Okay that's it. You three try to stick together. Teal'c and I can take care of ourselves." Jack says, annoyed.
"All right." Sam says. "How are we getting in without tipping them off?"
"You, Daniel, and Kelly are just going to have to figure out the guards." Jack says.
"All right, so what's food?" I say.
"Rations." Sam tells me. I look at her as if she had just suggested haggis so she reaches into my pack and pulls out something wrapped in plastic that looks like an oatmeal cookie. I shrug and take what she hands me.
We eat our rations and get some sleep, having got a note from Dalarek during 'dinner'. We wake up with some sort of blue, glittery dust all over us. Sam collects a sample to analyze later, but otherwise we just shake it off and get a move on. Everyone agrees to stop and eat when Jack's whistling 'Pop Goes the Weasel' gets unbearably irritating.