"Yes, but… why now?"

Shrugging her shoulders, Sam Carter told her teammate through a bite of salad, "I just think we should do something. It's a good tradition."

"I mean, I guess… sure," Daniel Jackson admitted, though he was still obviously wary. "But… why now? And why start with Teal'c? It's not his tradition."

"Jaffa still have birthdays," she pressed.

"Yes. Many of them. Hundreds of them."

"For all we know, they do celebrate, and he just hasn't said anything since he's been here because we haven't done anything."

Daniel squinted at her over the turkey sandwich he held. "I think that's a reach. And I'd still like to know what made you want to start this all of the sudden. Don't you usually spend your birthday at Janet's?"

"I have, yes, but I'd like it if you guys were there. Don't you want somebody to take notice of the day you were born? You're important to me, Daniel," she pressed.

"As much as I appreciate that…." He took a moment to set the crust down and wipe off his fingers. "Sam, I think you forget how I grew up. Birthdays weren't really a thing."

She frowned.

"But if it means that much to you-"

He stopped short as Jack O'Neill stuck his head in the cafeteria door, glanced at Daniel, and let his gaze settle on Carter. "Dad's here."

Her eyes went wide. "My dad?"

"No," he answered, the sarcasm in full force, "Hammond's. Briefing Room."

~/~

"We came across this chemical by accident," Jacob Carter told them from his seat beside General Hammond. "The plant grows on a tiny moon in Kali's territory. It doesn't even have a Stargate."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Then why did you go there?"

"Because she said not to," the Tok'ra told him simply. "We received intel from a mole inside her forces that the moon was forbidden. And that made us curious."

"I would be," Sam agreed. Jack and Daniel both stared at her – one with a grimace and the other with pursed lips, both with raised eyebrows – and she realized that she was always curious, so maybe that wasn't the best litmus test. "How did you find it?"

"The plant grows pretty abundantly. Two operatives just brushed against it and were paralyzed within the hour. It wore off, of course, without any permanent harm, and we thought it worth studying. In its natural state, it seems to act as a paralytic if touched or ingested, but only for a short time. Obviously, the ability to incapacitate a Goa'uld is of interest –"

"I'll say," Daniel put in.

"But we suspect it can do more. Anise has been -"

"Whoa, whoa, wait," Colonel O'Neill interrupted, waving the man off with one hand. "Anise was involved with this? Has that woman not wreaked enough havoc yet?"

"She's -"

"And not just on the galaxy," he pressed on, ignoring the Tok'ra's frown, "but on us. Personally. The people around this table."

"How long are you going to hold a grudge, Jack?" Jacob asked.

"For what?" he shot back acerbically. "The time she hopped us up on Tok'ra speed and sent us into a Goa'uld ship and almost got your daughter killed?"

Sam could still see his face from a year prior, desperate as he bashed at the force shield to free her, and she had to look away as she tried softly, "Sir."

But her CO and her father were equally hardheaded, and the host couldn't let it go. "She didn't know that would happen."

"Well, she damn well should've. How about the time she offered to autopsy my brain while I was still using it?"

"What?" Jacob asked.

"The za'tarc thing."

"Sir," Sam said again, a bit more firm. If her father didn't know about that by then, he surely didn't need to.

"She missed the real threat because she was too damn stuck on -"

"Colonel O'Neill." Hammond's voice was calm but steely. "I suggest you consider who you're talking to before you go further down this road. For your own sake."

The older man wasn't usually evasive, and Jack blinked in confusion. Then Jacob asked, "I'm sorry? Am I missing something here?"

And Jack remembered that he was. That Carter Senior had somehow missed the whole za'tarc episode. And therefore had also miraculously missed the embarrassing confessions that had exonerated Jack and his daughter. From the way Jack's 2IC was intently studying a scratch on the table laminate rather than looking at anyone, she wasn't keen on Daddy Dearest finding out about that. Neither was Jack, he remembered, because he was quite proud of the fact that he still had all his own teeth, even after so many years of combat, and he didn't feel like losing a few to an overprotective Tok'ra papa. He took a breath to level out his voice. "I'm just saying I don't think we should trust her."

Jacob's eyes narrowed. "I don't think that answered my question."

"What is it that you believe this substance can achieve?" Teal'c asked instead.

The Tok'ra stared at him, refusing to be derailed. But staring at Teal'c was somewhat akin to staring at a concrete wall, and he shifted his gaze to Daniel Jackson, who shrugged at him. George Hammond just gave him an exasperated look. Jack, too, returned the hard stare with one of his own, and he turned his attention to his daughter, who'd reverted to picking at her thumbnail and staring at it as though it was the most interesting thing she'd ever seen. "Sam," he said flatly.

"No," she told her hands, her tone identical.

"Moving on." The base commander's words were final, and Jacob resigned himself to bugging her for answers later.

"Ten Tok'ra volunteered to try the new drug. They were instructed to take control of their hosts and try to retain it, but almost all of them failed. They were sedated, harmless, secondary to their hosts."

"Almost all," Teal'c echoed from beside him.

Jacob nodded. "Two were unaffected."

"Of ten," Daniel pressed. "Twenty percent. That's, uh... That seems like a pretty high failure rate."

"I was going to say it seems like a pretty small sample size," the younger Carter spoke up.

Her father frowned at her. "Really, Sam? How often do you do preliminary testing on any of your field inventions?"

"Considering we're usually running for our lives when she does, we're a little short on time," Colonel O'Neill answered dryly. "And her failure rate is pretty low, which is more than I can say for your own little mad scientist."

"Can we not start that again?" Daniel muttered.

"Excellent idea, Doctor Jackson," Hammond agreed from the head of the table. "What is it you want from us, Jacob?"

"We were hoping for Doctor Fraiser's help with some additional testing to be sure the human hosts aren't being harmed," his friend said. "And as the SGC has –"

"Oh, we're guinea pigs to you," Jack interrupted. "Again."

The Tok'ra took a calming breath before he said, "Even the High Council believes Doctor Fraiser's opinion here is of value. Her expertise. And her lack of bias. But as I was saying, we think there's more. We want to know what kind of effect the substance has on Jaffa."

"Whoa, you're not testing this crap on Teal'c," Jack insisted.

"If he agrees-"

"You're still not."

Jacob gave him a dirty look and addressed the man in question directly. "Since a Jaffa's symbiote is not in direct control of the host, we're not sure the drug will work at all. But if it does, the benefits would be almost incalculable. With the symbiote poison, we can kill thousands in one fell swoop. But that doesn't mean we should. If we can incapacitate them – preferably through airborne means – we can achieve our objectives with a fraction of the death toll. We want the same thing here. We're trying to save lives."

"General," Jack protested. "The last round of 'testing' was –"

"I will assist you," Teal'c said.

"No," Colonel O'Neill pressed.

"After Doctor Fraiser does her own assessment," Hammond pressed, "and only if she gives her blessing."

The Jaffa nodded, and after a moment, so did Jacob.

Jack crossed his arms. "When this all goes to hell, I just want it on record that I said it was a bad idea."

"Noted," his CO agreed dryly. "Dismissed."

If Sam gave him the chance, her father would start asking uncomfortable questions again. She took off so fast that she'd made it almost to the door before Jacob asked, "Where do you think you're going, young lady?"

"I'll figure it out when I get there," she called over her shoulder without breaking stride. And then she was gone, leaving the three men of SG-1 and the base commander alone with a ticked off Tok'ra.

"Well," Hammond said, "I have paperwork calling my name." He headed for his office.

"Translations to do!" Daniel grabbed the folder off the table and practically ran for the door.

Jacob's eyes leveled once again on Jack, who struggled for a valid excuse and came up empty. "I'm off to... powder my nose," he said finally, ignoring the dirty look that earned as he stepped around the table toward the exit.

"I will accompany you to the infirmary," Teal'c offered.

"Thanks," Jacob said. "I think."

He'd just cleared the door frame before the Jaffa asked from behind him, "For what reason would one place powder on their nose?"