Once they sent off Hedwig, Sam went back to her lab – she had a lot of work to do, even though she admitted that she doubted she was going to get much done with the events of the last couple of days. Daniel looked longingly at Fawkes, who ignored him completely in favor of taking the perch on Jack's shoulder that Hedwig abandoned when she was sent off to deliver her message, and eventually the archeologist sighed and reluctantly headed back to his office, where he too had a lot of work to be done – although all he really did was sit in front of the computer and pull up everything he could about phoenixes.

Jack and Sirius went back to Jack's office (where he worked on paperwork while Sirius lounged around watching a TV that had been brought in for his use). This was rather distracting for Jack, since Sirius was far more interested in the remote control than he was in any particular Muggle program, and watching someone channel surf through 600 channels is incredibly distracting. Even for someone who was more focused than Jack. He, of course, was doomed from the get go, and it was only a half hour or so before he finally gave up on what he was doing, took the clicker from Sirius and put it on ESPN, where he started to explain Muggle sports (baseball in particular since that was what was on) to the wizard.

This lasted until lunchtime, when Sam finally gave up on her work and came to find them. Since Jack's office was the only place Sirius could be in human form, she was fairly certain that was where she'd find them. Sure enough when she knocked on the door Jack answered almost immediately, using the door itself to block Sam's view of who was actually in his office until he saw who it was.

"Carter… come in."

She did, and wasn't at all surprised to find them watching baseball. Sirius smiled at her from his spot on the sofa, and she couldn't help but smile back.

"It's getting late, and I thought I'd see if you guys were ready for lunch?"

Sirius stood immediately.

"I'm starving."

"Ah." Jack held up a hand to stop him from heading to the door. "Unless you want to be scarfing down Dog Chow and gnawing on a big meaty bone, we're going to have to eat here."

A chagrined look crossed Sirius' features as he realized the limitations of being on the base, but Sam simply shrugged.

"You can bring lunch here, can't you, Sirius?"

Nodding, and more than willing to have a reason to show off to such an audience, Sirius pulled out his wand.

"Of course. What would you like?"

OOOOOO

Daniel joined them for lunch, and didn't leave afterwards. Neither did Sam. It was just too interesting to have a full-fledged honest to goodness wizard in their midst, and Sirius found himself doing small spells and incantations for the little group; nothing fancy, just moving things and making stuff appear out of nowhere. It was small stuff for him, but it was entertaining for all involved.

"What are you guys going to do for dinner tonight?" Sam asked sometime around 4PM. It was getting late enough that she was feeling guilty about ignoring her work – and worse, making Sirius into a sort of sideshow just for their amusements.

Jack shrugged, looking at Sirius and Daniel.

"Eating at home, I guess…"

"Why don't we take Sirius out to O'Malley's or something?" Daniel suggested. "It's not like it's a big hangout for Voldemort or his buddies, right?"

"I don't know, Daniel…" Sam said, hesitantly. "We're supposed to be hiding him, and we can't do that-"

"What's O'Malley's?" Sirius asked, eagerly.

"It's a bar that-"

"Carter's right," Jack said, interrupting Daniel. "We shouldn't take him-"

"Come on, Jack," Sirius said, interrupting. "How many wizards do you think there are in Colorado Springs? It's not like they're going to come looking for me here – that was the whole point of me coming here. No one thinks I'm alive. The whole idea was to get me away from Harry – and we have. He's not going to come looking for me in a pub…"

Jack scowled, looking over at Sam, who was watching Sirius. It was obvious to Carter that the wizard was eager to get out and do something – and she more than the others knew that he'd chafed from being forced to stay at his family home for so long while the Order of the Phoenix had been hiding him.

She shrugged at Jack's questioning look.

"It might not hurt. Once…"

"Great!" Sirius was quick to jump on Sam's approval, and ignore Jack's uncertain look. "When can we go?"

Jack scowled. He didn't like being rushed into something he wasn't all that sure of – and this definitely fit that description.

"We can pick you guys up at 6," Daniel said.

Sam looked at Jack, who had both Sirius and Daniel watching him as well, eager for a yes from him, since they could all see he was still considering vetoing the whole idea.

He finally sighed and shrugged.

"Fine. But at the first sign of trouble, we're hauling ass right back to my place. Understood?"

Sirius nodded, more than willing to agree to anything.

"Absolutely."

O'Neill still didn't look all that confident about this whole plan, but Sirius' enthusiasm more than made up for Jack's lack of it. The wizard turned to Sam, his face as cheerful as they'd ever seen it.

"Tell me all about this place."

OOOOOOOOO

"How do I look?"

Sam smiled. She and Daniel had just arrived at jack's place, and although Jack had answered the door, Sirius had been close at hand. The wizard was quick to pose in front of the two of them, arms wide as he waited for their opinions.

He was dressed in clothes he'd borrowed from Jack; jeans and a white button down shirt that was neatly tucked into his pants, and a pair of loafers with no socks.

"You look great," Sam told him, honestly. Dressed like he was, you'd never know he was a wizard. He looked like any other normal guy who was going to go hang out with his friends for the night. Sirius smiled, smugly, and Sam looked at Jack. "You look nice, too, sir."

Jack gave her a slight smile, acknowledging the compliment.

"Thanks, Carter."

"Let's get going," Sirius said, heading for the door.