Passing By

Teal'c enjoyed appliances.

It didn't matter what they did, or did not do, he liked the idea of a machine being made to do anything other than kill people. He researched them, tried them out, and had even ordered several from the Home Shopping Network. If he tagged along with O'Neill or Daniel to the mall, they had to be prepared to spend at least an hour in the Sears store testing refrigerators, blenders, and toaster ovens.

O'Neill had even had an apron made for him last Christmas that said, "Jaffa House Elf".

It was pink.

So it usually fell to Teal'c to do the dishes when they had their team nights.

Silence had fallen for several long, long minutes after General Hammond took his leave. Jack appreciated the fact that none of the team members had looked at him with pity. It made the whole stinking thing easier to take. When it became apparent that nobody knew quite what to say, Teal'c had risen and placed a hand on Daniel's shoulder meaningfully.

"Daniel Jackson," he'd said, "Perhaps you would be so kind as to aid me in cleaning the kitchen."

Daniel's beer had worn off enough that he was capable of such help, so he jumped to his feet and followed Teal'c up the few steps that led to the kitchen.

O'Neill sat, brooding, still in the chair in the corner. He hadn't spoken since the General had left. He was playing with the opening in the top of his beer bottle, absently sliding his index finger in and out.

He could feel Carter watching him, knew that she was working up the courage to say something. She fidgeted in her seat, straightening her skirt, and adjusting the denim jacket that she wore. Finally, she heard the water start in the kitchen. It seemed that gave her enough of a cover.

"So, sir, you don't seem to be exhibiting aberrant behaviors as quickly this time."

Jack still didn't look over at her. "What?"

"The behaviors that you displayed last time don't seem to be happening quite so quickly this time. Maybe we have more time to figure out a solution."

Jack shrugged. He stretched out an arm and placed his bottle on the floor beside his chair. He wasn't all that upset about what he would become in a few short days. What rankled was that so much would be left undone. Unsaid.

"Yeah, well, I don't expect anything miraculous, Carter."

"That doesn't mean we can't try. Maybe I could do something with Tok'ra technology."

Jack sighed and interlaced his fingers behind his head. He stretched his long legs out in front of him. For the first time, he captured her gaze. "Carter—just let it happen. We'll work things out."

"I don't want to lose you, sir."

"You won't be losing anything, Carter. Everything important in your life will remain the same, even if I turn into—whatever."

"Sir."

He wondered with a dim smile if she even knew that she had turned the word into something of its own language. He'd tried to keep count at one point how many different inflections she'd given that single syllable, but he'd given up after a while. He'd had to take a grammar class during his college years—something that he'd found almost uncomfortably interesting. One of the more fascinating bits of the class had centered on the physical makeup of sound—what kinds of things the mouth and voice had to do in order to communicate language.

The letter 'S' was a voiceless sibilant palatal fricative—meaning that the tongue connected with the palatal ridge and directed a stream of air out through the teeth to make the sound. 'I' in this case was in its short vowel form—really little more than a line and a tittle—but it counted as a high front vowel. The 'R' in English was normally used as a frictionless alveolar approximant, or some said a retroflex liquid alveolar. All three parts of the word were spoken at different points in the mouth.

Put together, the three letters formed an honorific. A title. In the military—and more specifically in the Air Force, the honorific could be used for any superior officer—even, at times, Non-coms.

Yeah—he was something of a grammar geek. Not that he'd admit it out loud. Ever. Ever.

But somehow, for him, Carter used the word differently. A 'sir' for him sounded different than a 'sir' for the General. Softer? More familiar? Almost as if she were calling him by his first name.

There was an intimacy involved that didn't happen for other 'sirs'. Unless he was, as he had recently started to suspect, a total raving maniac. He didn't think that was the case.

This time she meant the 'Sir' gently—chiding him. Reminding him that he was becoming maudlin.

He smiled at her. "I know, Carter. It'll work out. It always has in the past."

She paused, her face troubled. Glancing back over her shoulder, she scooted over on the couch, closer to him. "Sir," she took a deep breath. "About what I was saying before. Before Daniel and Teal'c arrived."

"Barged in." He watched as she tried to figure out what to say.

"Okay. Before they barged in. I just wanted tell you how—" she looked him directly in the eye. "It's been an honor, sir, these years with you. You are an amazing man, and you totally underestimate your own value."

"I'd say right now the White House was underestimating that value."

"Sir. Please."

She deserved this chance, he decided. Even if it equated to torture in his book to be forced to sit and listen. He owed her at least this opportunity to say what she wanted to say. Quietly, he nodded. "Go ahead."

She scooted even closer. "Colonel, I would do anything to fix this. You have done more for this country and this planet than ten men should be asked to do, and you don't complain. Somehow, I will do whatever I can to find a way to fix this. You deserve nothing less than that."

"Carter, I'm not special. I'm an old soldier, and I've been lucky, apparently one too many times. Eventually something was going to kick me in the butt. Let's leave it at that, shall we?"

But still, she shook her head. "I don't know how to leave it at that, sir."

"You'll need to learn. Pete won't like being upstaged so often by the end of the world and all."

She sat back into the couch and frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." O'Neill said simply, reaching back down for his bottle. "It means nothing."

Sam looked like there was something else she wanted to say, but Jack decided that the conversation needed to stop. It was his house, right? He was tired of going around this topic.

He looked her straight in the eye. Bending forward, he rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, the beer bottle dangling from his fingertips. "I meant what I said before, Carter. Let it happen. It'll work out."

"What'll work out?" Daniel asked from the dining room. He stood at the top of the steps, drying his hands on a dish towel.

"The Colonel thinks that this situation will somehow fix itself."

Daniel shrugged, a kind of eerie imitation of the motion O'Neill had made earlier. "It probably will. These things tend to, you know."

Carter shook her head again. "I don't see how. We don't have the technological capabilities to remove the information of the Ancients from the Colonel's head. It will overwrite his brain and—"

"Carter!" Jack waved his hands. "Gah—stop it!"

"Sir?" This time, not so gentle—this time the 'sir' clearly told him he was nuts.

"I mean it. The more I think about this stuff, the faster it happens. And I'm not ready to go all Ancient quite yet. I have a few more things to do."

"Staying positive might help." Daniel nodded. "That's a good thing." He descended the stairs and sat on the couch next to Sam.

Teal'c, apparently finished in the kitchen, followed behind him. He sat in another chair. "Indeed. It is important to remain believing that things will turn out for good. That is what gives one advantage over an obstacle."

Carter nodded, but her accompanying smile didn't reach her eyes. "Right. Positive."

Silence descended again.

Daniel broke it this time. "So, Jack, I never got a chance to ask you how you liked Polly."

"Polly?"

"Biago—I gave you her card."

Jack couldn't help it. "Her name really is Polly?"

"Well, yeah—I mean, it's Pauline, but everyone calls her Polly. At least her friends do. I'm not so sure about her patients."

"Polly Biago?" Carter cast Daniel a questioning look.

"Yeah—a therapist friend of mine. I gave Jack her card—" His voice died as he saw the look on Jack's face.

Carter's attention immediately returned to O'Neill's face. "Therapist?"

Daniel tried to save himself. "To date."

"She's a therapist that one dates?"

"I have heard of such doctors. They advise their patients on sexual matters, sometimes offering themselves as tutors." Teal'c added.

Jack looked murderous. "She's not a sex therapist, Teal'c. She's a regular therapist. You know—'boo-hoo, my dog died, and I need to yap on about it for an hour'—that kind of therapist."

"You're seeing a therapist, sir?" Okay—so that kind of 'sir' he hadn't cataloged, quite yet. That one he'd never even heard before.

"Yeah—he's seeing a therapist." Daniel brightened. At times he lied quite well. "I set them up on a blind date a few weeks ago. He's seeing a therapist. As in dating her. The therapist. Named Polly."

Carter's eyes widened as she turned back to look at the Colonel. They practically took over her entire face. Her expression would have been comical if it hadn't been so—frightening. Jack decided she looked kinda scary.

"You're dating this therapist."

"I've only seen her once." It wasn't exactly a lie, was it?

"But you're intending to see her again." Not as much a statement as an indictment.

"I have thought about it." Jack moved his beer bottle back into his palm. If he couldn't drink it, he might as well use the bottle for self-defense.

"Does she know that you just had the entire repository of the knowledge of the Ancients downloaded into your brain?"

"Carter, I've only seen her once."

Abruptly, she stood and reached into her pocket for her keys. "Well. You guys have fun with that, then. See you tomorrow, sir. Daniel, Teal'c. See you later."

And with that, she was gone. And she'd kind of slammed the door a little on her way out.

Daniel's eyebrows had crept so far upward that they were practically falling over the other side of his head. He looked at Jack and blew out hard, his cheeks inflating a bit with the effort. "Wow. That was close."

Jack reverted to grunting. He wasn't quite sure what that would be described as, grammatically.

"So, you didn't know her name was Polly?"

"The card tore in my pocket. I only had the last three letters of her last name, and she didn't introduce herself." The Colonel pointed the beer bottle at Daniel. "And you're dead meat, by the way."

"Yeah, I know." Daniel dismissed him. "How does a business card tear in your pocket?"

"It got stuck on a life saver."

"Lime?"

"Grape."

"Did you find conversation with the therapist beneficial, O'Neill?"

Jack looked over at Teal'c. He sighed. "Yeah—I guess. She's okay. But she doesn't have a couch. I thought that was weird."

"But the Polly part—" Daniel insisted on knowing.

"Yeah, well—when I got there, she was wearing this polyester suit. So I sort of may have thought of her as—"

"You didn't." Daniel deflated a bit.

"—Doc Poly."

"You did." Daniel sighed again. Harder. "Did you call her that to her face?"

"Daniel, I'm not a complete idiot."

"Really?"

Jack chose to ignore that. He stood, still holding the bottle. "Well, fellas, I've still got things to do before I get overwritten, so. . ." He paused, deliberately waiting.

Daniel rose. "I don't like leaving you alone." He stepped closer to where Jack stood. "You'll call if you need me."

"Yeah—you'll know it's me by the gibberish spouting out of my ginormous yap."

"Yes. Well, even so." Daniel made a nervous little motion with one hand. "Call me."

O'Neill followed as Daniel and Teal'c turned for the door. At the entry way he stopped, watching as Teal'c pulled a stocking cap out of his back pocket. He hadn't worn it on his way in, but he pulled it down low over his head on the way out.

He turned before he stepped off the porch, looking once again at O'Neill. "I still retain your house keys, should there be need for me to use them."

Daniel pursed his lips. "You gave him your keys? What about me? Don't you trust—"

But the Colonel had already shut the door and turned the lock.