A little while later, after grabbing some stuff for the bar-b-que, hauling four rather heavy bags of groceries up to his apartment, and shoving food in the refrigerator and cabinets, we settle in to figure out what to do with our free time.
"I suppose I should at least check my email, see if anything really important comes up." I say, as we sit against each other on the couch, and he plays with my hand.
"People send important email?" Daniel asks quietly.
"Yeah, these days I get all kinds of stuff. Wedding invitations, Christmas cards, job offers, so on and so forth."
"All I've ever got is spam mail."
"Well, that'll change." I say, sighing a bit. "Are you getting hungry?"
"Yeah, what do you want to do for dinner?" Daniel asks, considering options.
"Don't know… How does Chinese sound?"
"Sounds like a plan." He says, while I get up and log on my AOL account to check through my email. "I'll call in a little while." Daniel says, drawing up a chair behind me so that he can read over my shoulder. "You don't mind, do you?"
"I'm good with that." I say, setting aside a bunch of my puzzles of the day for later, when I don't have people reading over my shoulder.
"Very eclectic tastes." He mutters, as I get on my favorite set of message boards.
"Yeah, but what's the fun of being online if you can't broaden your horizons?" I ask, checking over one of my community threads.
"Good online philosophy."
"Oh, don't talk to me about philosophy, there's an entire chat room committed to philosophers. What loons those people are."
"You're a chat room girl?"
"Hey, at least I'm not a porn site perv."
"Neither am I."
"I know, you're probably the sort that just researches things all day, a Google guy. No quizzes or anything fun like that."
"Hey, I amuse myself online." He says, as I log into the shy chat room. "What are you…"
"Just getting further opinions…" I say, as I greet the room. I hit the ignore button on the guy who's just drawing disturbing pictures and ask the rest of the room about the different types of online people. A couple of people agree with me that a quizzy chatish board girl would drive a non-fiction reader guy nuts, and that constantly reading non-fiction isn't entertaining yourself unless you occasionally interrupt the non-fiction with a jigsaw puzzle or a crazy-person message board or something. The rest of the room mostly agrees with each other that I should distract him from his non-fiction and bang him immediately, which gets us both laughing as two of the other chatters start to act out what they think we should be doing. I extract myself from the chat room, check the guest-book on my site and the message board attached to it, log off and shut down the computer.
"So, what did you think of that?" I ask, as I go into the kitchen for something to drink, and unfortunately finding nothing I want right now.
"That was…" He says, drifting off. "How did you get your own website?"
"Ah, it's just a piece of crap I do for fun, doesn't seem to be very popular. Of course, that could be because I suck at advertising, but I just decided I could write a website one day, and so I went searching for a free site builder."
"How do you suck at advertising? That seems to be a really neat site."
"Nah, I just hate being all, like, 'please, pay attention to me! I'll put anything up to get people to look at my site and not trash it, just take a look!'" I say, doing my comic impression of a loser chick begging for approval.
"Yeah, that kind of makes sense." Daniel says, smiling as he laughs a little. "Do you get that kind of thing often in the chat rooms?"
"Nah, but plenty of people break in to perfectly interesting conversations just to advertise their smutty pictures, and I don't want to join those ranks."
"Understandable. What about the other thing?" He says.
"Only sort of. I get quite a few guys trying to cyber with me, so I just go all serial killer on 'em and they back right off. The shy regs are usually pretty good for advice, though, if you can get 'em to pay attention."
"That must be one of those good things about the Internet." He says, going for the phone.
"Getting and giving free advice from people who openly admit that they don't know everything about every situation having to do with everyone? Yeah." I say, as he calls some oriental eatery.
"So what else have those people advised you on?" He asks, hanging up his phone.
"Oh, little of this, little of that." I say, recalling some of the fun conversations I'd had with the people in the shy chat rooms and smiling.
"Do I even want to ask?" He asks, a little half smile on his face.
"Depends on how you're feeling." I say, leaning back against the counter.
"Um, I'm fine, why?" He says uncertainly, and I go back over to him and straddle him as I sit on his lap.
"'Cause it's not the kind of thing you tell a guy." I purr, as I take off my boots.
"Well, we do have a few minutes before the food gets here." Daniel mutters, making no move to stop me as I move to take off his belt.
"That's a really good piece of advice." Daniel breathes, a little while later, just after we roll apart.
"You're telling me." I say, my accent having returned rather thickly during. "I'll be back." I say a moment or two later, as I get up to go to the bathroom. I grab one of Daniel's shirts, only buttoning a few of the middle buttons, as Daniel relaxes on the bed, and someone knocks at the door before I can get out of the bedroom.
"That'd be the food." He says, moving to get out of bed really slowly.
"I'll get it." I say, grabbing the wallet out of my pants. I head for the door as I take out the cash for the food, not really concerned about how I'm not really dressed since all the major areas are covered well. The knock starts again as I open the door. "He - " I say, not expecting to find Jack, Sam and Teal'c standing there, which is precisely what I find. "Oh, crap."
"Nice way to answer a door." Sam says sarcastically.
"Could be worse, I could've come to the door completely nude. Come in, I'll go… do… things." I say, standing back from the door to let them all in.
"Brought movies." Jack says, holding up a Hollywood Video bag.
"Cool, be right back." I say, heading back to the bedroom, where I find Daniel dozing off. "Hey babe,"
"No food?" He asks, as I find my jeans and pull them on, shoving the money in my front pocket.
"No food, just the guys." I say, searching for my bra. "Get up." I laugh, as he tries to bury his head under a few pillows.
"Who are the guys?" He asks, as it hits him and he lifts a couple of the pillows from his face.
"Your guys, Jack, Sam, and Teal'c. Now, come on." I say, finding my bra twisted up with my top. I untangle them and put them on as Daniel sits bolt upright in bed. "I'm not kidding." I say softly, tossing a pair of his pants at him.
He gets dressed quickly and I straighten up my hair as much as possible in a few minutes, and we go back out to find the guys all making themselves comfortable around the living room. "Hey, guys." Daniel says, apparently in shock.
"Hey, nice door service." Jack says to Daniel, as I fall into a free chair.
"Ha ha, thanks much. What's up?" I say, seeing that Daniel's in no fit state to say things at the moment.
"Just thought you guys might be up for a movie or two." Sam says, smirking.
"We have Star Wars." Teal'c says, smiling.
"Not bad. Anything newer?" I say, nodding.
"Not really. Sam picked up Practical Magic, and I thought you said you worked on The Crow, so we picked that up, too." Jack says
"Yeah, I worked on that. Not a lot, but just enough to say I knew Brandon." I say reflectively.
"Cool." Sam says.
"However, we just ordered food, so now you get to have the fun of figuring out how you want to change your plans." I say, as Daniel starts to come out of his little stupor.
"Japanese. If you guys want in we could order something for you." Daniel says, sliding off of the arm of his couch that he'd been sitting on.
"You sure?" Sam asks, doubtfully.
"Yeah, I can afford it." I say casually. "In the meantime, who's driving?"
"Sam is, why?" Jack says.
"Because who wants a beer?" I say, getting up to go to the kitchen. Jack and Daniel both raise hands, and Jack shoots Daniel a weird, confused look. "Sam, Teal'c, want anything else?"
"What did you pick up?" Sam asks.
"Uh, juice, cola, and root beer." I say, trailing off for until I get into the kitchen.
"Juice is fine." Sam says.
"I would like to try the root beer." Teal'c says.
"All right, be right up." I say, going into the kitchen.
"So what do we watch first?" Jack asks, a few minutes later as I hand people their drinks and sit down to my own.
"I'm sayin' we start with the oldest and work our way new." I suggest evenly, opening my stronger than beer.
"When did you pick that up?" Daniel asks, obviously not approving of my choice of drink.
"While you were grabbing things other places,and I grabbed the beer." I say, seeing the fight coming and working to diffuse it before it actually happens. "I have no taste for beer."
"Okay…" Daniel says, probably arguing with himself over what he should be saying or doing in response.
"So, does anyone want to play musical chairs before we put in the movie?" I ask, automatically getting some really odd looks from Jack, Daniel, and Sam.
"No." Jack says, a little snottily.
"So everyone's happy sitting where they are? No one wants to change the angle they're looking at the TV from?" I say, deciding to ignore it.
"Oh, uh, yeah." Daniel says, standing up to move to the end of the couch nearest to me, and the delivery guy knocks on the door.
"Got it." I say, getting up and going for the door, tossing Jack the phone on the way.
"What's this for?" Jack asks, as he picks up the phone that had landed right next to him.
"You guys wanted food, too, right?" I say, opening the door. "Hello."
"Thirty nine, twenty five, please." The delivery guy says, handing me the big bag as I hand him forty-five dollars.
"We just had people arrive unexpectedly, so you might wanna remember your way." I say, taking the little bag.
"You have a nice evening."
"Thanks, you too." I say, closing the door as he walks off. "You guys set?"
"Yeah, should be another half an hour." Jack says, as I set the bags down on a counter. "I just hit redial."
"Good deal." I say, starting to unpack the food. "Actually, Daniel, what do you think about just popping this stuff in the microwave when the rest of he food gets here?"
"That's fine." Daniel says.
"Unnecessary, though." Sam says, subtly elbowing Jack.
"I'm used to the old rule that you don't eat in front of guests, it's one of those things that stuck when I was a kid." I say, re-packing the one dish I had already taken out. "Hey, I uncovered an old pic you guys might be interested in, wanna see it while we're waiting?"
"Sure, why not." Daniel says, sitting up a little straighter as I notice that he'd taken the chair I was sitting in.
"How old?" Sam asks, grinning.
"Only about ten years, not even, probably. It's from one of my birthdays." I say, going into the other room where I had dropped my suitcases. I grab the picture, which I had prudently stashed in an outside pocket of my little suitcase, and go back out to hand it to Jack.
"You have many friends from many movies in this picture." Teal'c says after the pic gets passed to him, handing the picture to Daniel.
"I actually had to argue with the guys to stand next to each other, luckily the rest of the girls were on my side." I say, as my cell phone starts to ring.
"What's that?" Sam asks, obviously finding the inner child in my ring tone.
"Savage Garden. Excuse me a minute?" I say, going into the other room to retrieve the phone.
"Anyone important?" Daniel asks me quietly, as I come back into the room with the phone.
"Just a minute." I mutter, deciding on a course of action, as I push talk. "Hey, you've reached Kelly Tyler, I'm entirely too busy to talk to you, so leave your name and a number and I'll try to call you back, however, if I don't you might as well quit trying." I say and shut off the phone.
"Nice." Jack says somewhere between amused and sarcastic.
"Yeah, that was my sister. She pissed me off a little while ago and I'm not talking to her." I say, setting the phone on the counter. "So, where were we?"
"No where." Jack says.
"Fun place to be, that. Something like a cross between the Bermuda Triangle and the South Pole." I say, getting a laugh out of Sam and Daniel.
"So, Tyler, trust fund baby?" Jack asks.
"Yeah, a little bit. I've always worked at something, though." I say, starting to get just a little annoyed at leaning against the back of the couch.
"Something like what?" Jack asks.
"I've always been able to find a set, or an ER, or a law firm looking for experienced help, of course, when I get bored with something like that, I could always just go do the waitress thing or whatever. Trust money gets shoved at the big stuff."
"You got a house somewhere?" Jack asks, trying to figure out the big stuff all at once.
"A couple, actually. Mostly on a technical basis, I usually stay in my apartments." I say, deciding to go and sit with Daniel. I go and sit on Daniel's lap, ever so slightly catching him off guard, but not enough for him to make me move.
"Is real estate an interest of yours as well?" Sam asks, evidently having been caught off guard as well by my sudden choice of seating.
"Only sort of. I usually wind up building a house, living in it for a little while, and then giving it to someone who could really use the space. I don't think it's quite normal, but people say it's one of my few altruistic ventures so I keep up with it."
"So you get stuck living in cracker box apartments until your next house is built." Daniel remarks, not particularly thrilled with the notion.
"Hardly. My apartments are usually condos in the wrong shape, now furniture shopping, there's a hobby."
"So where's home?" Jack asks.
"Few different places in this country, a couple more around." I say, not particularly thrilled with the direction the conversation is taking. "Home home is Ayr, though. The most beautiful place I've ever seen, and twice as comforting. Didn't spend much time there when I got older, but from what I remember; blue skies, gorgeous blue waters… just being at home was great fun for a five year old."
"Sounds awesome." Sam says, as people knock on the door again.
"Yeah it was." I say, getting up carefully to answer the door. "Hello."
"Forty seven, ninety two." The delivery guy says, handing me the food as I hand him fifty-five.
"Thanks, keep the change." I say, as he starts to walk off counting the cash. "Food's up." I say, starting to unpack the bags, then going over to the earlier bags.
"Finally." Jack mutters getting up from the couch, as Daniel's stomach audibly growls as he follows Jack and Sam.
"Thanks, Kelly. What do we owe you?" Sam says, as Jack finds his food and hands Sam hers.
"Nah, don't worry about it. I've dropped more willingly on people I hate." I say, shoving Daniel's dish into his microwave. "All right, it's official; we've got egg rolls out the ears."
"Sorry, didn't notice you had already ordered some." Jack mutters, taking a fork as I set them out.
"No big, it's just more food to eat." I say, turning to hand people plates. "All right." I mutter under my breath, as Jack digs in to his dish without waiting for the plate Sam winds up taking. People situate themselves at the dining room table; I finish zapping things and join them.