AN: On Daniel's 'famous last words' -as someone so correctly put it ;) -, I know it's a bit cheesy and cliché, but I just couldn't help myself. Sometimes you just -have- to add a serious cheesy cliché for the fun of it :D. At least I do, but my mind works in weird ways ;)

Chapter 5 - Canteen on the loose : Jack's POV

"Hey Daniel, how much longer untill that ruin?"

"I don't know Jack. For the tenth time. It shouldn't be long now."

"You said that an hour ago."

"Yes I did."

"What? No 'we'll really be there soon now'?"

"Isn't that what I just said?"

"No really, how much longer?"

"Jack, don't you have something else to do? Go annoy Teal'c or Sam."

"They ignore me."

"So that's what it takes?"

"That..- "

"O'Neill, I believe we have arrived."

"Really? Excellent! Carter, Daniel go play, Teal'c and I will secure the area and set up camp."

"Finally."

"And Daniel stop rolling your eyes at me! Carter no giggling!"

The two days hiking to the ruins had gone really smooth, no obstacles along the way and the team...it was almost like the last 4 years never happened. It was good for all of us to relax on a regular mission for a change. Saving the galaxy was really gettin' old. Now, seeing as the area was quickly secured Teal'c and I had more important business to attend to.

"T. 20 bucks on 30 minutes."

"I would have to disagree O'Neill, I would place 20 of your dollars on 15 minutes."

"Yeah, well we'll see."

"O'Neill I think it would be wise for you to reconsider your bet."

"Yeah right, you do realize the 15 minutes are almost up right? And they're still happily playing around in that ruin over there."

"There is still time left, I strongly advise you to reconsider your bet, if you do not wish to lose."

"Look, T. It's Carter and Daniel for cryin' out loud. We'll need really strong coffee and probably use force to get them out of there. I'm tellin' you they won't report what they found for at lea-"

"Sir."

Oh, no she wasn't. How did he know that? Usually they can't be dragged away from anything remotely uninteresting for normal people, and of course when I make a normally valid bet on it, he wins.

"Carter, what did you find?"

"This isn't the temple-"

"What! You're telling me we came out all this way for nothing?"

"Like I was saying, Sir, this isn't the temple. But the building a little down the hill is. You can't see it from here or across the valley, it's surrounded by bushes and trees. We actually found it by accident because Daniel dropped his canteen which rolled downhill. This building was a sort of Inn or something for the pilgrims to rest at while visiting the temple, according to Daniel. The temple seems to be completely intact, and I've located the device. The entrance however is blocked; we can't get to it."

"Right...so where IS Daniel?"

I glared at Teal'c. I still won half the bet if Daniel wasn't here. Meaning the bet would be off.

"He's coming right over, left to refill his canteen."

"Ah. Yeah. Well..it's to late to do anything now, we'll start working on that entrance first thing tomorrow morning."

"Sir?"

"Something else Carter?"

"You lost the bet didn't you."

"Oh for Cryin' out loud. Did you guys set that up or something?"

" No sir, of course not. We wouldn't do that."

Yeah right. She was looking way to wide-eyed for that to be true, not to mention she was grinning at T. While Teal'c was looking very pleased with himself. The word 'smug' came to mind. Better settle the bet right away. While handing T his money Daniel decided to butt in.

"Ah, How much did you bet for Jack?"

"Daniel, I hear you've been dropping things again. Better watch that, it might be something valuable next time, like you know, a tablet or something."

"Sir. I still needed to talk to you about the preliminary readings of the device. Of course I couldn't..-"

As much as I hated the word sir, I kept amazing myself over the fact that she could make it sound like anything, a pet name, an order - like now-, a 'regular' sir, a 'we're in mortal danger' sir...

"-...get to the device and take a closer look, but I did some energy readings. Sir, the energy readings are above the minimum level."

Meaning it still works. Of course since it's ancient that only made sense. And that probably meant it was going to do something we didn't want it to and would cause us trouble; Because it's ancient. And it still works. Note to self: Don't forget the 'Don't touch strange buttons' -speech tomorrow morning.

"And? Your point would be..?"

"Sir..-"

...exasperated 'I know you know exactly what I mean' sir...

"-...It means the device is still active. It can't be anything else other then active technology at that energy level. We'll have to be extra careful when we clear the entrance to the temple, we don't know what triggers it yet. But it also means we'll be able to use the technology if we figure out what it does exactly."

"Daniel, nothing on the walls to enlighten us on what it does?"

"Err...no. That's probably on the inside of the temple."

"Right. In that case, we'll take look tomorrow when we open it up. And no, we're not going to do that now, it's to late and we're all to tired. No exceptions! Tomorrow. So...what's for dinner?"