"I'm glad you could make it on such short notice," Jack said once they were alone. Aeda smiled and nodded. "How's your father doing?"

"Much better since the transplant. He's taken up jogging, which is annoying my mother. They send their love."

He smiled slightly. "Good. How'd you meet up with Daniel?"

"On the elevator, actually. He called you crusty."

"I suppose I am sometimes. You'll be working with him if you take the position."

Aeda shrugged. "He's seems very nice, very gentlemanly."

"He's a pain in the ass, and he's stubborn." He said it as though it was a warning.

"It's not as though I haven't dealt with that personality type before, Jack."

He laughed. "Good point. When can you start?"

"Monday. I need to get back to Boston and finish up some things with the department. I'm officially on sabbatical."

"Unofficially?"

She smiled. "I've been asked to take a leave of absence and reevaluate my career goals."

He stood when she did and they walked slowly to the door of his office. "Who'd you piss off this time?"

"The head of the Physics department. Dr. Winkenstein."

"I think I'd change my name." He opened the door as she laughed and they stepped out into the corridor. Daniel was at the end, consulting a stack of papers with a corporal. "Daniel!" Jack shouted. The younger man's head popped up from the papers. "I'd like you to meet your new assistant, Aeda Harrison." At the look on his face, Jack turned to Aeda and said softly, "Good luck, chuck."

By the time Daniel reached them, Jack was back in his office and the door was not only closed, it was locked. Daniel turned away from it and looked at Aeda with an unhappy smile. "I'm not sure how to proceed with this," he said and kicked himself mentally for sounding like a pretentious ass.

She smiled. "You could start by buying me a cup of coffee. I've been on a plane since yesterday. If I don't get some caffeine soon, I'm going to start taking hostages."

He nodded and they made their way down the corridor to the mess.

"You ran inside your office and locked the door?" Samantha asked. Jack had asked her to meet him for lunch in his office without really explaining why until she'd sat down with her Greek salad and had already put a forkful of it in her mouth.

"Hey, we both know he's a wiry guy." He sounded defensive and childish. Sam was having a hard time not laughing at him.

"You're a General and you're his boss. I don't think he would have hurt you." She speared an olive. "So who's the woman?"

"What woman?" This time, defensive and guilty.

She smiled. "The new assistant. The woman you interviewed."

"Oh, that woman." He grinned. "She's a daughter of an old friend of mine. Dr. Aeda Harrison, her father is –"

"Admiral Belvedere Harrison."

He was amused by the reverence she placed on the man's name. "The one and only, thank God. After consulting with the Joint Chiefs and deciding that an assistant would be an acceptable addition to the SGC, I called Bell and asked him about Aeda."

"I've heard her name, too. She's a professor of Theory at Harvard. I've read a bunch of her articles on quantum particles and –"

Jack cut her off with a look. "Please, no big words before dessert. Anyway, she's on sabbatical until the beginning of the fall term and she agreed to come in and work with us." He picked a tomato out of his Cobb salad and put it on the plate between them. She ate his tomatoes and he ate her onions. It was all very domestic and yet, he appreciated it about their lunches. "Have you met her?"

Sam shook her head. "No, he's been holed up in his office with her for the last couple of hours. Teal'c has, though. His opinion of her was that she's very beautiful but sad."

"That guy is so deep," he said and picked another tomato out of his salad. "Her father almost died a year ago. He needed a heart transplant and they had trouble finding him one. He's just now getting back up on his feet. She lost her husband three years ago, around this time actually, to cancer if I remember right."

"No wonder she's sad." She dropped a couple of onions onto the plate.

Jack shrugged. "She's actually not, at least not anymore. I remember flying out there for the funeral. She didn't go to it, she couldn't even leave her bed and it was months before she actually left the house. You wouldn't think it to see her the way she is now."

Sam smiled suddenly, gently, taking him off guard just slightly.

"What?" he asked.

"There are times that you amaze me and times that you frustrate the hell out of me. And then there are times that I remember just why I enjoy working with you so much."

"Good thing the door's closed," he said with a smile.

"They're enough alike that in the end, this could be good for everyone. You made a good match, sir."

"Don't go spreading it around. You'll ruin my reputation for being crusty." He reached out and speared an onion ring just as she reached out and speared a tomato. "And every once in awhile, you amaze me, too."

He was pretty sure she blushed.