She had cleared off a small portion of his workbench, mostly by straightening up the papers and piling them up away from her, and had claimed it as her own. Daniel was seated across from her, and every so often he would glance up to find her engrossed in a translation or a book he thought he'd lost weeks ago. She was good at finding things, he'd realized, and together they'd set about the task of retrieving a rubbing he'd done of a section of inscriptions from a tomb on Abydos. It had been buried at the bottom of a stack of papers he'd labeled "Get To Sometime" a couple of months earlier. Of course, at that point, they weren't an integral part of something important.
He glanced at his watch and was surprised to find the little hand pointing at the six. He could have sworn that twenty minutes ago it was only two o'clock. "Aeda, it's six. You're free to go if you'd like."
She slowly looked up from the book she was current perusing and smiled at him. "I was free to go when I got here. I don't actually start work until Monday. In fact, I had a flight to catch-" she checked her watch "two hours ago."
His eyes widened behind his wire-rimmed glasses and he frowned. "Why didn't you say something? You should have told me or at least kicked me in the shins to let me know you needed to leave."
She laughed. "I work at Harvard, I study universal theory, and I've never encountered anything like what I've been exposed to today. Please, wild horses couldn't have torn me away from this office." She shrugged. "Besides, I called the airline and rescheduled my flight for nine tonight."
"Do you need a ride?" What was it about this woman that made him ask silly questions, questions that teenage boys asked when they were hormonally crazed over a teenage girl?
She smiled. "I have a rental car, actually. But thanks for the offer." She slid off the stool and smoothed her hands over her pants, which appeared to be wrinkle invincible. For a minute, he lost all ability to think clearly. She pulled her hair up and secured it with a clip that came out of nowhere. "I do think, however, that I'll be pushing off. The drive to the airport will take about an hour and I'm famished."
He smacked himself lightly in the forehead. "I completely forgot about dinner," he said.
"Don't worry. So did I. There's a café along Pearl that I'll stop at and grab something." She pulled her coat on and buttoned the top button. The collar stood up slightly and gave her a regal appearance. "You're staring, Daniel."
He blinked a couple of times and flushed, instantly embarrassed. "I'm sorry."
She shrugged. "Don't worry about it. I'm hard to offend." She pulled the strap of her briefcase on over her head so that it settled diagonally across her chest. "Thank you for the coffee and the wonderful day and I will see you in a week, bright and early."
"I'll walk you out," he said and stood.
At that moment, Jack appeared in the doorway to the office and smiled at its occupants. "No need, Daniel. Aeda, I wanted to speak with you for a minute if I could."
Aeda nodded, then turned to Daniel. "I believe the translation you were looking for earlier is in that book." She pointed to the tome she'd been studying earlier. "Page six hundred, near the bottom of the page. I marked it with a note."
She exited the office and Jack followed her, his hand on her back, guiding her away. For a split second, Daniel experienced an emotion he hadn't felt in years: It was jealousy, green and ugly. He stepped on it quickly and took the book from where she'd left it.
The airport was desolate, the weekend travelers having reached their destinations that morning and the business crowd having stormed the terminals that afternoon. It gave her time to consider her day, but more importantly, it allowed her to eat the fresh bagel and cream cheese she'd gotten from the Pearl Street Café. She couldn't go to Boulder and bypass the café. It was unheard of, sacrilege even.
Jack had walked her to the elevator and had commented on only one thing: she should feel free to wear jeans when she arrived at work on Monday. His reasoning was that if he wasn't in uniform, he was in jeans and she didn't have to wear a uniform. It wasn't logic, but it suited her just fine. He had punched the up button and had stood back.
"I owe you, Jack," she'd said quietly while they'd waited for the elevator to arrive.
"There's nothing to owe, Aeda. You're my goddaughter. You've been through more hell than any twenty-eight year old should have to suffer. If this is what you need to forget the past, then by all means come on down."
She'd smiled. "What a way with words."
"I do what I can." The elevator dinged its arrival and the doors slid open. "Let me know if you need help moving. I'll send Teal'c around – you'll have to feed him, of course, but he's strong as a moose." He'd kissed her forehead, then, and she'd found herself surprised at his tenderness. "Go on, go home. And tell your father to return my phone calls. Just because he's retired doesn't mean he gets to travel more." He grinned.
She'd stepped onto the elevator. "See you in a week," she'd said and had been pleased to see the genuine smile that made its way to his face as the doors closed.
She finished her bagel and tossed the parchment wrapper away in a trashcan nearby. A copy of her newest article, a work in progress, sat next to the newest Robert B. Parker novel in her briefcase and she was forced to choose. It was a long ride home; she'd need something stimulating to keep her mind off the fact that she was flying.
She chose to work on her article in the airport. After what she'd seen today, universal theory was boring.