"My name's not Martha, it's Corey."

Jack smiled, looking down at the kid – who was probably no more than 5.

"Where's your mothe-"

"COREY JAMES BOATRIGHT!"

Corey wasn't the only one to flinch at the sharp voice that seemed to come out of nowhere. Jack and Ian both turned so sharply that it was a wonder neither of them hurt themselves. A second later a woman came rushing up, glaring at the boy with a look that would have done any DI proud. It certainly worked on the boy. He paled and immediately lost the officious attitude he'd had when giving Ian advice.

"Mom..."

"Where have you been? I told you to stay beside me, didn't I?"

"Yeah, bu-"

"Don't you yeah but me, young man! I've been looking for you for over ten minutes! Are you out of your mind?"

"I was just-"

Whatever he'd just been doing was cut off, though. She took hold of his hand and pulled him along with her, sparing a glance to Jack and Ian that plainly said her son wasn't going to bother them again and Jack looked over at Ian, his brown eyes surprised and amused at the same time.

"What was he doing?"

Ian shrugged.

"Giving me advice."

"What the hell is that?" Jack reached into Ian's cart, picking up the pomegranate.

"It's a pomegranate."

"What does it do?"

Ian shrugged.

"Do you want me to put it back?"

"Are you going to eat it?"

"I might."

"You'd better." He made sure there was more than one, just in case it looked good once Ian started eating it. "Do you have everything on your list?"

"I need to get butter."

"Okay, I'll go get in line."

Ian nodded, and headed back to the dairy section while Jack went to find a place in one of the amazingly long lines. He counted his items, wondering if 8 cans of cranberry sauce counted as one item. Deciding he'd rather not start a riot by testing that out, he sighed and went into the longer line, behind the woman who had the screaming child who was still howling about the lack of a candy bar – especially now that he was in a checkout line where there were so many different kinds of candy bars to choose from!

Jack sighed, but he couldn't be annoyed; he felt too bad for the harried mother.

"Jesus, woman, give the kid an apple or something and shut him up."

Ian had had enough of grocery shopping. He'd had enough of lines and crowds and little kids, and he'd definitely heard enough of the screaming kid. The woman turned and glared at the cadet, who had come up behind Jack with his cart completely unnoticed – not surprising since Jack had been unable to hear anything above the screaming child.

"Smooth, Ian," O'Neill muttered, although he could see that several other people in the line – and other lines – were nodding their agreement.

Ian scowled, but didn't say anything else, and the woman turned back to her son, who continued to scream.

OOOOOOOOO

"You know, we're probably going to have to work on your people skills," Jack told the cadet about a half hour later when the two of them were heading back to the truck.

"Why? What's wrong with them?"

"Aside from the fact that they're non-existent?"

"Hey, I have people skills..." Ian said, defensively. "I just... don't deal well with annoying people."

"There's a lot of annoying people in the Air Force, Ian," Jack told him. "You're going to have to learn to deal with them until you've got the rank to ignore them."

That was experience talking, of course, and Ian recognized that. He lost the defensive scowl as he thought about that, and then lost the annoyed look completely as they unloaded the bags of groceries into the back of the truck, and tried to fend Jaffer off as he tried to see what all they'd brought him. Jaffer was always good at making someone who was annoyed cheerful, and Ian was not immune to that. He grabbed the lab's collar, drawing his head over to him so he could scratch his ears.

"I got you a pomegranate," he told him.

"You're not feeding that thing to Jaffer," Jack told him. "Not until I see you eat some of it yourself so I know what it looks like."

Ian laughed, and let go of Jaffer's collar so the big dog could jump out of the back of the truck and get into the cab – it was too cold for Jack to allow Jaffer to ride in the back.

"I'm sure it's great, Colonel."

"That's 'Jack'," O'Neill told him as they got into the truck. "And don't forget it, or I'll make you eat that thing raw."

"You think it's supposed to be cooked?"

Jack shrugged.

"We'll ask Sam. She'll know."

"Think so?"

"She's a genius."

"So am I."

Jack looked over at him.

"Really?"

"Yup."

"Some genius you are... you just bought a fruit that you have no idea how to eat."