Inescapable: Chapter 9

AN: Disclaimer and all in Chapter 1. I'm suffering from a little indecision as to where I'm truly going with this, so sorry if I keep it brief for a moment. As always, the reviews of the last chapter were appreciated greatly.

"… so I think that it would be a fantastic opportunity, I mean who knows what we might find reference to…Jack? Jack?"

"Hmm?"

Jack phased back into reality and frowned when he saw Daniel gazing at him with a patronising expression.

"You weren't listening," Daniel accused. Despite Jack's personal problems and Daniel's desire to meddle in them, the artefacts SG-7 had discovered on their recent mission were important. Jack lifted his eyebrows and looked at the file on his desk, tapping the pen he'd forgotten he had in his hand, on the paper.

"Hard to believe," he quipped, without looking up. He heard Daniel sigh and his brow furrowed, trying to remember what Daniel had been babbling about before he zoned out.

"Are you going to approve the mission or not?" Daniel asked impatiently, ignoring his sarcastic remark.

"Rocks, Daniel," Jack said superciliously, his eyelids wrinkling as he looked up at Daniel with squinted, brown eyes that were still only half in the room.

"Ancient artefacts, Jack," Daniel corrected with a restrained tone, shifting onto one leg and twisting his fingers into a gesture Jack took to say 'my patience is wearing thin'.

He couldn't care less - about Daniel's patience or the rocks, or the mission, so he said with exaggerated exasperation, "Do whatever you want, Daniel!"

Daniel licked his lips, a little taken aback. "Trust me, you wouldn't like it if I did," he warned Jack, now particularly pissed off with his friend's behaviour.

Jack rolled his eyes and looked away from Daniel's judging eyes.

"Take SG-12," Jack mumbled quietly, lifting pages in front of him, turning them and pretending to be interested in their contents. Ideally, he would send SG-1, if only to get them, especially Carter, as far away from him as possible, but she still wasn't back. After a few seconds of silence, he could sense Daniel was about to speak. He paused what he was doing to dismiss him before he did. When he raised his head, a knock interrupted them. "Come in," he barked instead, ignoring Daniel's hard eyes boring holes in him and training his eyes on the door.

Walter walked in, hesitating a moment when he saw Daniel and was slammed by the tension. He threw glances between the both of them, and then told Jack, "The agent from the C.I.A called, sir. She'd like to speak to you before she arrives." Jack nodded as Walter took a few tentative steps and handed him a piece of paper with a phone number on it, then left in a hurry, glancing sympathetically at Daniel as he did.

Daniel resisted the urge to throw his eyes up to heaven. "Call her, Jack."

Jack fiddled with the slip of crisp paper as he met Daniel's eyes briefly before he turned and left. Somehow, Jack didn't think Daniel was referring to the C.I.A. agent. He sighed and reached for the receiver, setting the paper down beside the phone.

So short and most definitely not sweet! Hehe…