A/N: Jack and Sam will be forced to talk eventually, but it's more fun if they're both in full denial for a little bit longer;).
Here's where we left off:
Sam shrugged innocently and turned to her CO with a smile. "So, what do you want to do first, sir?"
Ch 6: Zip-a-dee-do-dah
Jack pondered the question as he watched Daniel and Janet disappear in the crowd, off towards Epcot. "I don't care, we can do whatever you want."
"I've been here all week, sir, isn't there something specific you'd like to do?"
He shrugged. "Not really. It's not my birthday, Carter."
"Okay, but... all right. Well, I mean we did pick out some things, but..."
"Good, lead on Major!"
"Well, the things I thought... we thought... you'd like are kind of pretty widely spread out."
"That's okay."
"Oh. All right then. Well, one of them is here at the Magic Kingdom, so I guess we should do that one first."
"Okay, let's go. And Carter?"
"Sir?"
"Relax. This is supposed to be a vacation." He smirked and added ironically, "That's an order."
"Yes, sir." She stuffed the map into her back pocket and they headed off in the proper direction, Sam trying to figure out what the Colonel was thinking and getting nowhere. He seemed happy enough. Maybe she was just overreacting.
"Race cars, Carter?" Jack asked in surprise when he saw where she had led him: Tomorrowland Indy Speedway.
"Yeah. Well, they don't go really fast or anything but I thought they looked..."
"Fun?" he supplied with a smile.
"Yeah. Fun."
"Only if you're especially fond of losing, Carter," he said with a challenging tone to his voice.
"Sir?"
"Loser buys a beer? Wait, I guess beer and Disney World don't really mix, do they? Okay, loser buys a Coke."
"It'll be Diet Coke, sir."
"I don't like Diet Coke, Major."
"I'm aware of that, sir. I do."
She thought about adding that actually she and Daniel had some pretty tasty beer over at Epcot, at the Biergarten. But seeing as how he seemed perfectly happy to wager soda rather than beer, she figured adding beer to her already confused brain probably wasn't a good idea. Plus the thought of getting drunk at Disney World in the early afternoon with her CO was very strange on many levels.
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Cassie wondered if Teal'c noticed how strangely the operator looked at him as he folded his huge frame into the flying Dumbo car and she wedged herself in next to him, or if he simply couldn't care less. She loved Teal'c a lot; he was the first member of SG1 she had ever laid eyes on for starters, but sometimes she really couldn't read him very well.
"Teal'c, are you up for a challenge?" she asked, her eyes sparkling.
"Always, Cassandra Fraiser."
"We can try to do everything in the Magic Kingdom in one day. Between now and when we have to meet everyone, of course. And try to get everyone's autographs and pictures with all of them. It's hard to do. They even have contests about it and stuff."
"That sounds most entertaining. I am glad you are no longer upset."
She looked at him in surprise as their elephant took off the ground. Cassie told herself that it was all in her head; that their elephant did not take off more reluctantly than the others, and that it was fully capable of supporting the two of them.
"You are disturbed about O'Neill and Major Carter," Teal'c stated, not bothering to phrase it as a question because it wasn't one.
"It's like she doesn't even care anymore, and he's not saying anything either! I don't get it, they were so close..."
"I do not understand either. However I believe they must work out their problems between themselves. And besides, I would not want you to miss the fun of Disney World because you are preoccupied."
"Yeah, that's pretty much what I decided too. So... think you can keep up with me today, Teal'c?" she asked with a challenging smile.
"I will try, Cassandra."
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"I'm so glad Colonel O'Neill organized this. I know I should be better about doing this kind of thing with Cassie, but it's so hard even getting away from the base for a little while..."
"Yeah. I never get to leave and I don't even have a kid waiting for me at home," Daniel said sympathetically. "I don't think Cassie minds though. I mean, she wasn't a really little kid when you adopted her, and she seems really happy... aside from whatever Sam's done to piss her off recently."
Janet smiled. She hadn't really expected Cassie's less-than-subtle attitude to escape Daniel, but she was a bit surprised he hadn't figured out its cause yet.
"She doesn't want to talk about it, but I know it's about Sam and Colonel O'Neill. Or, more specifically, Sam and Pete."
"Ah. Yes," Daniel said, nodding in understanding as they arrived at Epcot. "Well... that is the question on everyone's mind, is it not?"
Janet shrugged. "It surprised me too. Sam wouldn't talk about it. She told me if it ever got serious she would, which led me to believe she doesn't expect it to get serious."
"Yeah, she said as much to me. I just don't get it..."
"Neither does Cassie, and I think she's taken it as something of a personal insult."
"How so?"
"I think she's made getting Sam and the Colonel together into sort of an ongoing pet project. So, what should we do first?" she asked with a bright smile as they got through the Epcot entrance.
"Well, over here there's a... medical type thing. I mean I'm sure it's very elementary so if you don't want to check it out I understand of course, but... it's one of those voyage through the body type things, and all that."
"Sounds fun, let's go!" She linked her arm through his and they headed off towards Body Wars.
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"Diet, please!" Sam reminded him triumphantly as Jack headed off to one of the millions of vendors nearby. He debated telling her he had let her win but quickly decided against it. First, it wasn't entirely true. He had let her win, but it had really been mostly because he was trying to keep from bumping into a little boy and girl who looked way too young to be driving any type of vehicle that didn't come with streamers and a bell on the handlebars.
Sam had been pretty relentless on the track, which was kind of funny by itself. His usually selfless and protective Major had zipped past young and old alike, probably not noticing that there were actual people driving those cars at all.
Plus he knew if he had won by just a little bit she would have demanded a rematch and they probably would be at the same ride all day long. Not that he would really have minded that, but those tiny cars weren't exactly designed for his 6'2" frame. His knee was already beginning to twinge and they had only done half a day's worth of walking.
"Where to now?" he asked as he returned to where she was waiting out of the main tourist traffic and handed her the soda.
"Well... there's some shopping things but those are really far away."
"Shopping?" he asked, wincing. He liked to think he was a pretty modern guy. He didn't mind cooking or cleaning, doing laundry, ironing, and it didn't bother him at all that he had to (had to, ha!) call his 2IC to reset the clock on his VCR when the power went off, or change the oil in his truck... but he still didn't like shopping.
"There are a couple of stores here that you will really like," Sam said eagerly, pulling out her map again. He tried to look at it but she turned so he couldn't see it, holding it up.
"Carter!"
"Just trust me, sir, you don't need to see which stores I'm talking about yet... besides we should wait and see if everyone else wants to go later."
"There are a million things on that map, it's not likely I'll..." he narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Did you... draw an actual, visible plan, Major?" he asked suddenly.
"N...no."
"And are you now lying to your Commanding Officer? At Disney World no less? Tsk tsk, Carter, your nose will grow."
She laughed and folded the map up. "All right then. We'll save the shopping for later. Let's go hop on a car."
"Why?"
"We're going to Epcot."
He looked at her suspiciously but followed. She glanced over her shoulder to see if he was following. All Jack knew of Epcot was that it was the Sam/Daniel part of Disney World, which probably meant that he would find it either boring or incomprehensible, or both. And Carter herself had told him she and Daniel were done there and he didn't need to go... he eyed the map that was sticking out the back pocket of her pants and snatched it up quickly, but not smoothly. He had been hoping she wouldn't notice.
She did, of course, and there was a brief scuffle over the map as they wove through crowds towards the shuttle to Epcot. Finally as they got on board, he relinquished the map, surprised at how fast the casual companionship they'd established during the car races had turned very, very flirtatious, and even more surprised that Carter seemed to be enjoying and encouraging it.
Once they got to Epcot she walked right past the space looking stuff. "Daniel and I did that already. He hated it because the inaccuracies upset me," Sam offered by way of explanation as they passed the large area.
"Ah yes. Was it a repeat of the... what was that alien movie Teal'c made us all go see called again?"
"Signs."
"Right. Was it a repeat of the 'Signs' incident?"
"Something like that, sir."
"Want to go tell them how wrong they've got it?" Jack offered.
"No thanks. Not this time anyway."
She led him to a ride called Test Track, which simulated being in a race car going very fast around crazy hairpin turns and the like. "That was cool, Carter," he said as they climbed out of it when it was over. "But I don't want you to think we have to do only stuff like this. I mean, if you want to go looking for Princess whoever like Teal'c and Cassie, that's okay too."
"Actually I've been wanting to go on that ride all week, sir, but it's not really Daniel's thing. I mean he'll go on roller coaster type rides, but he doesn't really like them all that much – he doesn't really seem to care much one way or the other."
"Oh. Okay then."
She paused, the thought suddenly occurring to her that he didn't care one way or the other either. And not just about the rides at Disney World. Whatever they filled today with, about her and Pete...
Jack quickly realized his 2IC wasn't walking briskly beside him anymore and turned around, alarmed at her sudden disappearance. In the field, that would have meant he was crouching down with his gun pointed at something evil and menacing, most likely.
At Disney World, he felt that, despite her tendencies to find herself kidnapped by various TV crews, crazy dying businessmen, and rogue NID officers whilst on 'down time,' the possibility of her finding herself in sudden peril at 'the happiest place on Earth' was remote, but probably not as remote as what had actually happened. She was stopped in the middle of a fairly large crowd and she suddenly looked like she was about to cry.
While it wouldn't have been the first crying blond wearing Mouse ears he had come across that day (although most of them had been a fraction of her age and about half as tall), he happened to know this particular blond quite well, and he had never seen her cry before without a damn good reason. And he really didn't want to see her cry today.
He quickly walked back over to her, nearly bowling over an old lady and her grandkids on the way and did the first thing that came into his head: he grabbed her hand and started pulling her through the crowd at twice their previous speed. "Come on, Carter, we don't have all day. What's next on your secret list?"
Sam, for her part, felt like she was still on a roller coaster. What in the hell was going on with either of them? He was clearly trying to cheer her up and keep her busy. Ironically, that had been the reason she had circled all those little spots on the map she thought he'd enjoy as well in the first place.
So, she decided to just go with it. Plus, he still hadn't let go of her hand, which was nice. "Tower of Terror, sir," she said decisively. "I did it with Daniel already but it was a lot of fun, and it doesn't take long. It seems a shame to come all the way to Epcot for just one thing, so we can do that too and then go ahead and get over to MGM because there's something else there before we have to meet up with everyone else."
"What about the shopping?"
"We can always do that tomorrow."
"Not even going to give me a clue what kind of shopping you think I could possibly enjoy at Disney World?"
"Nope," she said with a grin.
"Just checking," Jack answered as they got in line for the Tower of Terror. He glanced at the map that was once again not-so-securely sticking out of her pocket but resisted the urge to steal it again just now. She still hadn't let go of his hand, which was cool.
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Cassie was shifting impatiently on her feet. She had really, really wanted to ride the teacups just as much as Teal'c had but honestly, enough was enough. Teal'c was the strongest person she had ever seen, and he was able to spin their teacup sooooooo fast. It had been wildly fun the first two times, but then other children had started to get jealous and now there was practically a second line to the teacup ride to sit in Teal'c's cup and be spun so fast that several parents could be heard voicing concerns that their smaller children were going to be launched into orbit.
Luckily, as the ride ended, Cassie spotted someone in the distance. "Teal'c! I just saw Dopey AND Doc walking towards the Peter Pan ride... if we hurry we can catch them!"
Teal'c stepped right over the line of small children, bowed, and offered his apologies to them, then hurried off with Cassie to chase down their two remaining dwarves. "I am sorry I wasted so much time on the teacups, Cassandra."
"Did you have fun?" Cassie asked.
"Indeed."
"Then it wasn't wasted time, Teal'c." She gave him a small smile and they took off after the dwarves.
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"That was great, Daniel! It would have been really helpful to take Cassie there when she started asking about the birds and the bees... and a bunch of other things."
"Yeah, I imagine it would have been," Daniel agreed. "Oh, look, cotton candy! And they have blue! It's really hard to find the blue and when I was a kid I... what?" he stopped at the look on Janet's face and apologized. "Sorry, I get kind of... caught up easily."
"No, it's... cute," Janet said carefully. "And I like cotton candy too, Daniel."
"Great! Pink or blue? My treat."
"Pink."
"Good, we can share and compare." He quickly purchased two of the largest bags of cotton candy he had ever seen and by the time they made it to Mexico (Epcot Mexico,) they were halfway through with both.
"You look like Sam," Janet said suddenly.
Daniel frowned slightly. Maybe Janet was taking the 'twin' thing a bit too seriously. Daniel dearly loved Sam, but didn't necessarily want Dr. Fraiser equating the two in her mind... Sam was a woman, after all, and Daniel most definitely was not.
Janet laughed and explained, "Your mouth. It's getting blue. Like Sam and her blue jell-o."
"Oh! Is it bad?"
"Not really, it's kind of funny when she starts talking physics with a blue tongue but..."
"No, me!"
"Oh. No, it's not that bad. Here, have some more of mine, maybe it will... even out."
"Want to do this boat thing? El Rio del Tiempo?"
"River of Time?"
"Yeah, you speak Spanish?"
"Enough to order margaritas, that's about it. The pink is just mixing and making your mouth kind of purple," she added casually as they got in the back of the line.
"If we go to Germany next there's a cool restaurant Sam and I went to. Biergarten. We could get drinks there."
"Sounds good. Oh, wait, Cassie was looking at the information in the room last night... that's the one that's advertised as 'Oktoberfest all year long.'"
Daniel grinned, shrugged, and pointed out, "It's Disney Oktoberfest."
"All right, but I am not meeting up with everyone drunk. Neither of us would ever hear the end of it if we went off for a few hours and got drunk at Disney World."
"Good point." Daniel spent the entire time they were waiting in line trying to look at his own tongue to check what color it was.
"If you're that worried about it we can go now..."
"No! I want to go on this ride!" As he practically leapt into the boat, he realized he probably sounded (and looked, with his Mouse ears, cotton candy, and purple mouth) a lot like a four year old at the moment, he quickly added, "I mean, I've been... waiting to go on this ride all week. I thought you might like it."
"Oh." Janet didn't really know what else to say to that. True, Daniel was a sweet man by nature, and being in an atmosphere all week that just encouraged that had to be taken into consideration, but was he just being extra friendly today or was he actually trying to... flirt or something?
On a few occasions over the years she had thought Daniel might be a little bit interested in her, but usually it just seemed more like they were both there because Sam and Jack were there (wherever there happened to be at the time, of course) and so they kind of got stuck together while Sam and Jack did their weird not-quite-dating, not-quite-buddies thing.
While she certainly thought Daniel was cute, she really didn't know him all that well. It was certainly not anything like the relationship Jack and Sam had... or had started to have... or at least used to have... thinking about that just made her sad. Anyway, whatever little spark there had been between Janet and Daniel, however, had not come back when he had. This was the first time since his return from being ascended that the idea he might find her attractive had even occurred to her.
"Um, Janet, are you okay? You're not getting seasick are you? We did eat a lot of cotton candy but I don't think we can get off at this point..."
"No, I'm fine," Janet assured him. A little bit confused, but fine.
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"Sir, for the love of God, please wipe that smug look off your face!" Sam said, her voice a mixture of embarrassment and amusement.
"I didn't say anything," Jack insisted, holding his hands up in defense.
"Come on we're running out of time," Sam said, changing the subject and squeezing through the crowd. After a few seconds, she realized she had just given him an order and was currently dragging him around by the hand. Blushing, she waited for him to call her on it. He didn't.
Jack figured Sam was just flirting with insubordination because he almost always called her on it, and that way he'd forget about what had happened in the Tower of Terror. He wasn't going to. He let her drag him to get another transport and just had time to see that it was going to MGM before he was sitting on a crowded bench seat with her and they were moving.
New strategy. "I thought you said you and Daniel had already gone on that ride before, Carter," he said innocently.
"We did! It... changed. That's what scared me!"
The ride, which was basically an elevator that 'broke and plummeted you to your death,' had risen slowly, then fallen, then risen again only partially, fallen again, risen all the way back up, crashed faster than ever, hovered for a moment at the thirteenth floor, then crashed back down to the ground level. After the first initial fall Sam had latched onto his arm like they were about to die, and she had actually joined most of the other people in the car in screaming out loud. That had taken him much more by surprise than her grabbing his arm had, although he figured the damage she'd done to his forearm was worse than the damage to his ear drums.
"Carter, it's a ride..."
"I'm telling you, sir, it fell in a completely different pattern that time, so it seemed like it was really... falling."
"Oh. Are you okay? I mean, I'd hate to have to stop teasing you but if you're still shaken up about it..."
"I'm not. I'm fine now, it was just a ride. It just surprised me, that's all. I mean, come on, Colonel, we do rely heavily on elevators at work every day..."
"That's true, I hadn't really thought of that. Okay, if you get your picture taken with another character I won't mention it to anybody."
"Deal," she said quickly, standing up as they arrived at MGM.
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"Who is Tom Sawyer?" Teal'c asked as he and Cassie reached Tom Sawyer Island.
"He's a kid from a book... one of those classic books all Earth... American kids have to read in elementary school. He's like... picture Jack as a little kid."
"Hmm. Most disturbing."
"Yes."
"And how did he manage to acquire his own island?"
"He didn't really... I'll loan you the book when we get back home if you want."
"I would appreciate it, Cassandra. Now, let us go climb the tree fort."
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"Carter, are you trying to kill me?" Jack demanded. His 2IC was practically at a run she was moving so fast, and seemed oblivious to the fact that she could squeeze through much smaller gaps in the crowd than he could. He was apologizing to people left and right as he struggled to keep up with her.
"I'm sorry, sir, it's at the back of the park and it's going to start soon..." she glanced at her watch and then at him, biting her lip. "Is your knee really bothering you? We don't have to go."
"Nah, it's fine."
"It's a long sitting down thing, once we finally get there."
"Lead on Macduff."
She gave him a funny look but kept walking.
"Oh, cool!" Jack said as they found seats and he realized where they were.
"I don't know if it's actually cool or not, sir, but I hope it is. It looked cool from the thing in the hotel room."
"There's stuff blowing up right?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then it's going to be cool," he said firmly.
Figuring nobody else in the group would be very impressed with the Extreme Stunt Show, Sam had known it was right up the Colonel's alley. Daniel, she was sure, got quite enough of explosives in the field, and they weren't likely to be very impressive to a former First Prime. Janet and Cassie were both jumpy about things like that. But Jack O'Neill liked to see stuff blow up. It was one of those unwritten universal constants of SG1. It came right after, "Daniel will need an extra pair of glasses" and "Watch out for that Jaffa revenge thing."
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"Well, now what do you want to do? It takes a while to get over to MGM, maybe we should just head over there now? If we're a little bit early there's plenty of stuff there to see."
"Sounds good to me," Janet agreed. They had gone through most of the 'countries' of Epcot, sampling so many different foods and drinks that she seriously doubted she'd be able to eat anything at dinner, but they did still need to meet up with the rest of their group. Which reminded her...
"What are we doing tonight that's so cool?"
"It's supposed to be a surprise. Sorry."
"Come on, Daniel..."
"Well, I guess it couldn't hurt to tell you. There's an Indiana Jones thing... which is sort of for everyone I guess. I mean I've always liked it for the archaeology, Jack likes it because it's a gruff guy with a scar on his face and a whip and a gun who gets all the ladies..." Janet giggled at that assessment and Daniel continued, "Teal'c likes it because it's by George Lucas and has Han Solo in it, and Sam told me all of you like it too. You, Cassie, and Sam I mean."
"Yes, you can't go wrong with Harrison Ford," Janet said seriously.
"Um. Okay. I'll take your word on that one. There's something else too that's mostly for Teal'c, but everyone else will like it too. They have a new Star Wars thing."
"Oh Teal'c will love that. Who knows, maybe he'll even smile."
"Nah. He'll get a little crinkle in his eyes though, but you have to look close."
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"Are they... they are! Janet, I spotted Jack and Sam coming up Main Street and they're holding hands!" Daniel said excitedly.
Janet was much too short to see them that far away, but she laughed. "Daniel it's really crowded and it's starting to get dark, I'm sure they just don't want to get separated."
"Well, yeah, but... okay, Janet, I'm going to tell you something but you can NOT let Sam know that you know, okay? Or that I told you."
"Oh this must be good," Janet said eagerly, sitting down on the edge of the fountain they were using as their RV point.
"It is. I just found out last night and I was upset because Teal'c and Cassie have known about it for a long time, so I know how you're going to feel and I didn't want you to be the only one left out."
"God, Daniel, what is it?"
He glanced around as though afraid there might be Air Force officers hiding in the bushes to leap out with court martials in their back pockets if he spoke too loudly. While that probably wasn't true, it never hurt to be safe... he leaned in close and spoke quietly.
Janet's eyes widened. She wasn't sure she'd heard him properly. "They do what?"
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"Those two look awfully chummy," Sam commented happily, using the pretense of adjusting her mouse ears as an excuse to discreetly release Jack's hand as they got within sight of Janet and Daniel, who were sitting on a bench seat of the fountain, talking very intimately, practically speaking directly into each other's ears. Whatever they were saying had them both pretty excited as well. "I guess he finally figured it out," Sam commented absently.
"Figured what out?" Jack asked.
"Nothing, just... when we first found Daniel, when he couldn't remember anything..."
"When he was 'Arum,'" Jack supplied with a grin.
Sam rolled her eyes. That would have to be the only alien name they encountered in seven years that he remembered correctly. Just so he could tease Daniel. Naked one. She snorted. It was pretty funny. "Yes. Remember when you tagged me 'it' to go try and convince him to come back?"
"Yup. And it worked too."
"Well, he asked me if he and I ever had a 'thing,' and I said no, so when he came back..."
"He asked what?" Jack spluttered.
Amused at the reaction, Sam said, "He didn't remember anything Colonel."
"Still."
"Yeah it kind of creeped me out too."
"That's like watching the scene where Leia kisses Luke in Empire Strikes Back... oh crap." He stopped talking but realized it was too little, too late.
"Busted," Sam said with a satisfied grin. "I knew there was no way you had never seen Star Wars!"
"Carter! Was there a point to your little story other than to fill my head with incestuous images of you and Daniel and make me lose my appetite for dinner?"
"Um, yes actually. So I casually asked Janet after we'd been back if Daniel ever asked her the same thing. He hadn't. But I mean, I always thought they both had sort of a... a crush... or an infatuation or something, and he didn't seem to remember so..."
"You think he remembers it now?"
Sam shrugged. "Or just developed a brand new one all over again," she added as they got close to the bench where the two doctors were still talking, looking conspiratorial.
"Fancy meeting you kids here!" Jack said loudly. They jumped apart from each other like he'd hit them with zats. Well, not exactly. They both remained conscious and there was no writhing in pain. But they did move apart from each other quite quickly, and gave him guilty teenagers-caught-doing-something-dirty grins.
"You guys have fun?" Daniel asked, smiling at them both. Janet was really smiling, no beaming at Jack and Carter much too widely to be considered normal, Jack was positive. Like the Cheshire Cat. Or Jonas on a really, really good day.
"Yeah... Daniel did your face get stuck like that or something?" Carter asked. Apparently she too found their friends' behavior disturbing.
"Maybe doc's got something to fix you up back at the hotel," Jack offered. Sam hit him lightly on the arm and he said, "What?" Well, he had thought he made it sound innocent enough. Apparently not.
Shaking her head, Sam moved aside a bit to get Janet alone, while Daniel did the same thing to Jack. Jack only realized this after it was done and marvelled once again at his 'twins.'
"You two looked cozy when we approached," Sam said quietly to her shorter friend.
"That is none of your business, and you shouldn't be talking anyway. Daniel said you guys were holding hands."
Sam suddenly burst out laughing. "I think this place has reduced us all to eleven year olds or something..."
"Well, Florida was where the fountain of youth myths prospered..." Janet began, still trying to process what Daniel had been telling her. They kissed every year on Sam's birthday, her own daughter had known about it for years, and Janet never had a clue?
"Have a sudden interest in mythology and ancient cultures, Dr. Fraiser?" Sam asked innocently.
"Oh hush."
"What was your favorite thing you did today?"
"We went on this ride at Epcot, El Rio del Tiempo. It was a boat thing. It was... nice."
"How romantic."
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"We went to this stunt show thing where they blew up a bunch of crap and crashed a bunch of cars and stuff. It was so cool," Jack was telling Daniel at the same time Sam and Janet were catching up.
"How romantic," Daniel said sarcastically.
"Hey, we can't all parade around with matching mouse ears on, whispering to each other on park benches. Is that funnel cake?" Jack suddenly eyed the half-eaten treat in Daniel's hand and made a grab for it.
"Yeah but it's kind of soggy by now..." Daniel started, trailing off uselessly as Jack commandeered the rest of Daniel's pastry.
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"Oh. My. God."
As this phrase was spoken slowly by both women, Jack and Daniel turned quickly to see what they were looking at and froze, Jack with a handful of gooey pastry halfway to his mouth.
Cassie and Teal'c were approaching, although had Teal'c been a lesser man it would have been difficult to identify them, because they were buried under what looked like every souvenir ever produced by the Disney corporation.
"Hey, guys!" Cassie said happily as she reached everyone. She was carrying several bags in both hands and there were two balloons tied to her wrist. In addition to the brightly colored bags, she was carrying a very large plush Donald Duck. Still wearing her Minnie ears, she was carrying a large souvenir mug with a crazy straw sticking out of it in one hand and eating a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar with the other. A bag of half-eaten cotton candy was tied to a belt loop on her pants so she didn't have to hold it with her hands, and her purse was now covered with a myriad of assorted Disney buttons.
Teal'c, if it was possible, looked even worse, possibly because he was so large and just because he was Teal'c. The greatest warrior Jack had ever known. Standing in front of him covered in souvenirs, with bits of chocolate from his ice cream sandwich in the corners of his mouth. His Mad Hatter hat was now perched on his head at a comic angle; he had added at least two new layers to his wardrobe so that he was now wearing a Mickey track jacket over a t-shirt that had a picture of Grumpy the dwarf on it and said, "Sometimes I wake up Grumpy, sometimes I let him sleep."
Jack wondered if that was supposed to be about him, after the hat Daniel and Sam had given him. Teal'c carried twice as many bags as Cassie did, and one of them smelt like it contained popcorn and some sort of meat product. He carried a very large stuffed lion, a ridiculously large inflatable hammer with WOP! written on the side in cartoon letters, and had a balloon of his own tied to his wrist. There was a notebook tucked into the waistband of his pants that looked like a child's autograph book, and he had the camera around his neck, although it looked much stickier than it had when Jack had left it with him. Both Teal'c and Cassie wore huge, comedic oversized sunglasses whose frames were shaped like twin Mickey Mouse heads, and Teal'c was attempting to play paddle ball as they walked.
Jack, Sam, Daniel, and Janet all stared at the two as they reached them. Finally, Jack spoke. "What, did the Disney Store throw up on you guys or something?" he asked.
Sam hid a laugh, but it escaped when she noticed Daniel gaping at them both, open-mouthed.
"You guys look like you had fun," Sam commented.
Cassie glanced at Teal'c a bit uneasily and said, "We... did."
"What happened?" Janet demanded.
"Nothing, really... we did have a lot of fun, we just... set out a little goal for ourselves and..."
"We have failed," Teal'c said stoically.
"We didn't fail, T, we just... he's upset because we were trying to do everything, and we did ride all the rides and all, but we never could find Belle."
"Oh. That's too bad, Teal'c," Janet said, trying hard not to smile. "Let us help you carry that stuff and we'll go over to the restaurant... assuming Sam and Daniel are ready to tell us where we're eating, that is," she added, looking over at the two pointedly while they all started accepting some of Teal'c and Cassie's items to carry.
Jack, the least reluctant to offer to help, ended up stuck with the big inflatable hammer. "It squeaks when you hit someone with it," Cassie offered.
"Really," Jack said, experimentally whacking Daniel in the head with it. It did, in fact, squeak. So did Daniel.
"Maybe I should carry that, sir," Carter offered carefully as they started moving as a herd towards their destination, although only Sam and Daniel knew where they were actually going. "And guys, I'm sure you can find Belle tomorrow."
"The goal was to find them all today, Major Carter."
"Er... right. Sorry. You still look like you had fun though."
"Indeed. Did you have fun as well?"
"Indeed," Carter repeated lightly. Jack shook his head. Carter was about the only person in the galaxy who could get away with saying that back to Teal'c. Especially in that tone of voice.
Jack gave up trying to hit Daniel with the hammer again and turned his attention back to Carter, who was so preoccupied with Teal'c that she never saw it coming. He swung the hammer right at her bum and quickly tried to hide it behind his back when she wheeled around to look at him. He tried to look nonchalant, but as the hammer was quite obviously sticking out behind his back it didn't quite work.
Teal'c took his hammer back and wordlessly thrust the giant stuffed lion into Jack's arms instead.
"So, T, what's with this big lion?" Jack finally asked, holding it out at arm's length just in case anybody tried to accuse him of 'cuddling' it or something equally unmanly.
"I won him at a game of shooting water at a target, O'Neill. He is called Simba. He is the Lion King."
"Oh, er... way to go."
"The game was for children, O'Neill."
"Er, right." Well, he didn't know what to say to that. "Carter! Where are we eating, I'm starving."
"Here, sir," she said as she and Daniel stopped in front of a place and turned to everyone with expectant grins. Together, they exclaimed, "Sci-Fi Drive-In Theatre!"