Chapter 11

While investigations were furiously being conducted at the base general Hammond let SG-1 and the doctor go, with an encouragment to 'be on a look-out'. Jack and Sam went home to change, and Daniel took Noli directly to their usual hang-out. Teal'c had stayed behind to catch up on his kelnoreem, but after suffering wild protests vowed to join them later.

Noli plopped down at a table and sighed, happy to have a good end to a very long day. Daniel stayed up and asked: "What are you having?"

Noli closed her eyes. "Beer. Beer is good."

"Beer is good", he repeated and went to the bar. Noli leaned back and relaxed, reveling in the warm, fluffy feeling in her stomach. The outlook of being able to act completely like herself around at least a few people filled her with hope. Hope for normal relationships and for finally being able to let her guard down. No hiding a big piece of who she was. No careful rearrangements of facts. No irrational behavior she couldn't explain. Just her, open and accepted. She looked over at the man ordering drinks for them at the bar. He'd been nothing but nice to her, even when she knew she'd been getting on his nerves. And when he learned just why she had been, he seemed to simply accept it. No big deal. Of course she had been agitated by the loud humming of the PVC in her chair, how natural. Noli giggled to herself. She had expected a little more disbelief, but then again, Daniel had seemed to be more in tune with the universe than most from the very first day, making him more probable to accept things as they were. She'd enjoyed talking to him already then; his open-hearted enthusiasm unabashedly shining through and touching her.

Daniel returned and sat down, handing her one of the two cold bottles he was carrying. She smiled thankfully at him.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." Daniel had a sip from his bottle. "So... You're not mad, that, you know, we thought you were... evil?"

Noli shook her head. "Nah, I understand. I mean all circumstances pointed to one of two options and the right one you didn't have much chance to guess." She had a sip from her bottle, the cool beer tingling in her throat. "Or three options if you count the one where I'm crazy."

"But you're not."

"I'm not." She gave Daniel a mischevious look. "My little friend on the other hand... Can't speak for him."

Daniel laughed. "You know, I always had my doubts about him."

Noli put on a concerned look.

"I think it's the wild, staring eyes that put people off."

Daniel wrinkled his forehead.

"I didn't notice he had eyes."

"Oh, right..." Noli smiled. "I'm sorry I was bugging you so much, I was going kinda crazy myself."

"Yeah..." Daniel was resting his forearms on the table, picking at the lable on his bottle. He looked at her and asked: "What's it like? Can you describe it, at all...?"

Noli softly pursed her lips, her eyes looking up to the side.

"Certain things have strange effects on me. Not many, but a few, like PVC as you've painfully learned, and silver - I love silver jewellery, but if I forget to take it off before I go to sleep I have nightmares. And I have no idea why that is, I can't... analyze inwards, so to speak. But generally..." Noli struggled to find a good way of explaining her personal experience of the world. "I feel these... sensations. And it's like when you're learning a new language. At first there's the technical phase, where you learn a new word, you translate it and you know that ok, shekarim means darling. When you see shekarim, in your head you'll still translate it into darling to understand it. But after a while, it gets integrated with you, you don't need to translate it to understand it anymore, you just do. And the more words you learn the quicker it goes. So only instead of seeing a written word and knowing what it means, with pretty much all matter that I've gotten my hands on, literally, I know what the sensation it generates 'means'. And it feels like... music, a little bit. Rythms. Vibrations. So subtle they're just an untangible whisper." Noli looked at Daniel a little hopelessly. "Do you understand what I mean at all?"

Daniel looked back with a humorous glint. "I do, actually. Not... exactly what you're experiencing but I get the big picture." He made a pause, then had to ask: "Shekarim?" Noli chuckled.

"Turkish. I don't know, it just came to mind. Anyway, I know I sound like a total hippie but it makes it so obvious how everything is connected." They grinned at each other.

"I guess it's made your line of work a little easier?"

"Oh yeah. Hence the... youth." Noli gestured circles around her face. "I've always been a suspiciously quick study. And I know people always wonder." Daniel smiled a little sheepishly. Noli leaned back in her chair and enjoyed a silent pause, then said: "I had no idea just how huge a relief this would be. I'm afraid you're all gonna have to suffer a whole lot of weird comments from now on."

Daniel felt rather curious as to what they might be. He assumed Noli had a world of thus far unspoken observations. At that thought he felt a pang of sympathy towards her.

"It must have been isolating. Not being able to just speak out about what you're sensing."

Noli grew serious. "It has. It's been lonely in my world." Then her face turned sunny again. "Not so much anymore though." She lifted her bottle. "A toast. To beer bottles. They're cold. They're brittle. And they sound like a reagge festival in the woods." She clinked her bottle to his and looked him in the eyes with a big grin, making him feel privy to something completely new and secret.

A couple of beers later they had gone through the humming properties of everything within easy reach, discussed the origin of the egyptian anch and started building a three-dimensional name sign for Jack with sugar cubes. Daniel tried to place the last piece in the c but fumbled and it fell apart. Noli faked deep disappointment and they giggled stupidly. Daniel was, he realised, getting a little drunk. So was she. He chuckled and asked:

"So... 'Noli'. What, uh...", gesturing with his beer to indicate asking about her name. Noli winced.

"'Mag-no-li-a'", she over-pronounced, in a voice that clearly had no respect for the name. "It's such a stupid name!" she moaned.

"No, no..." Daniel comforted hesitantly. "It's beautiful." He took a drink. "Magnolias are beautiful. They smell good."

"It's my foremost trait. I smell good." Noli took a drink and looked at him over the bottle with twinkling eyes.

"I said magnolias. You probably smell like... beer..." he said, raising the bottle to his lips again. Noli stared at him for half a second, then burst out giggling. Daniel followed. When Jack arrived a minute later they were both in a fit of laughter. He stopped at the table for a moment to look at them, and the heap of sugar cubes spelling something like "jabl".

"I see you started without me?"

Daniel tried to calm down. "No, no...", he said, having another drink.

"No no", Noli agreed. They both looked back at each other with blank faces and kept negating Jack's allegation until they burst out giggling again. Jack rolled his eyes.

"I'll be at the bar."

Sam arrived with Teal'c a short while later. They waved to Noli and Daniel, got a pitcher of beer and one of water at the bar and brought them and Jack back to the table. Teal'c had also found a bowl of peanuts that he proudly sat down in front of him. Noli let out an impressed "Ooh" and shot out a hand to grab them. A stern look from Teal'c stopped her in her track, but then he resigned and pushed the bowl onto the middle of the table for public access. Noli looked smug as she munched away on the nuts, though Jack deemed them unsanitary. Friendly banter went on for a while, with amused glances from Sam and Teal'c when they noticed that both Noli and Daniel were a little tipsy. It was unusual to see Daniel this way, he didn't go out often and when he did he didn't drink much. Sam thought it was nice to see him relaxed, taking a well deserved break from the constant worries of the world. He was always so concerned about the well-being of others, seeming to forget about his own. Actually it had been a while since any of them had had a normal night out like ordinary people. They should do this more often. Perhaps having Noli among them would bring a sense of normality they had lacked, her being earth bound and having an actual life outside of work. Maybe it would rub off. After all she was the one that had made them come out tonight. Sam's thoughts lingered superficially on the events that had led them here, but she pushed the them aside, deciding she didn't want to think about trouble right now. They were under constant death threat anyway, from one place or the other, and she too deserved a break. Let general Hammond fix it.

"Come on, let's put something on the jukebox", she said to Noli, whose eyebrows shot up in agreement but didn't articulate much as her mouth was full of peanuts. She snatched a few more in front of Teal'c as they got up and followed Sam to the jukebox at the other end of the room. There was a tiny space cleared around it, serving as a dance floor for anyone who had the incling, which normally didn't happen until much later at night. This evening it would have been empty in any case, as they were virtually alone in the bar. The two women bent over the machine and searched the lists for anything recognizable. When Noli had finally cleared her mouth she asked:

"What music do you like?"

Sam shrugged. "I like a lot of stuff. It's hard to pin it down to one genre."

"Yeah, music is tricky that way. Hard to describe something as irrational as taste in music."

Sam gave the jukebox a crooked smile. "Like 'dancing about architecture', huh?"

Noli smiled at her. "Actually, I think it's fully possible to dance about architecture." She straightened and said rythmically: "This - saddle roof - is very - dramatic", her upper body illustrating the statement with a few well chosen twists and arm flailings. Sam laughed and turned back to the jukebox.

"Here", she said and pushed a button. The notes of a classic motown song started playing.

"Good choise", appraised Noli and took a few steps out on the floor, hips swaying. Sam followed and they started strutting their stuff, pretending to be cool and laughing at each other.

"So, been having a good time?" asked Jack when the women had left. Daniel bobbed his head.

"Sure." He downed the last of his fourth beer. "Did you know that beer bottles feel like a reagge festival in the woods?" He studied the bottle with a troubled look. "I don't know if there's a difference between if it's full or not... I suppose there would be, since the constitution of the whole object would be different... Jack?"

Jack, who was sitting opposite of Daniel, had his attention diverted to something else. Beyond Daniel was the rest of the room, at the other end of the room was the jukebox, and at the jukebox was - Carter. Dancing.

Carter was dancing. She had her arms stretched out in front of her, cheekishly rolling her shoulders and swaying her hips to the side. Jack watched the outline of her long legs, rounded backside and curved hips and waist as they moved to the music as if in slow motion. She was wearing those leather pants that gave her a hot dangerous look, and her arms and neck were left bare by the simple t-shirt that fit snugly over her chest. Her milky-white complexion seemed to shine all on its own in the dusky locale. Jack's gaze trailed her slender arms and hands, went up along her neck and settled on her face that seemed to be smiling at some blurry figure in the proximity. He couldn't quite see her wide, blue eyes from this distance, but he knew they would be sparkling. He swallowed. He wasn't supposed to be looking at her like this. It was completely inappropriate and he didn't want to go there. But something had him hypnotized, unable to tear his eyes from her. Then a voice in the distance registered in his brain, slowly bringing him back to the present.

"Anyway I think... What are you looking at?" Daniel turned around so see what Jack was seeing. The girls were dancing to an old motown song he recognized. "Son of a Preacher Man" or something similar. He remembered it being on Noli's long playlists because it was the first time he had seen anyone type to a beat. He turned back to Jack. "You wanna go dance?" he asked.

"No", Jack answered sourly. He recalled what Daniel had been yapping about. "What are you talking about, 'reagge festival'? You sure you should be drinking any more of that?"

Daniel was pouring himself another beer from the pitcher into Sam's glass. "Jack", he said calmly, "someone tried to poison us today. Someone tried to give us cancer." He spat the last word out. "I'm tired of always being on the verge of death and I'm going to get wasted." He raised the glass to Jack and Teal'c and took a couple of deep gulps.

Jack figured that was as good a reason as any to let Daniel drink until he passed out if he wanted, and to join him at that. But he settled for moderation; as the commanding officer he had to keep up appearances at work tomorrow.

Sam and Noli were returning for a breather. Noli arrived at Daniel's side a little out of breath.

"Hey", she said and rested with her hand on his shoulder. Daniel was downing another big sip of beer, but felt the upcoming request before Noli made it and handed her the glass before he swallowed.

"Thanks." Noli had a thirsty drink herself. Sam watched the glass switch hands.

"Is that my glass?" she asked a bit disapprovingly. Daniel happily affirmed and Noli handed it to her. It had lipmarks and fingerprints from three people now. "It's alright, keep it." Sam poured herself some water from Teal'c's pitcher instead. Noli set the glass down after another sip and suddenly Daniel winced voilently.

"Ow!"

Noli had pushed her thumb into his shoulder, not very hard but in the right spot.

"Triggerpoints", she said. "You-need-to-relax." She shook his shoulder in rythm with the words.

"That's what I'm trying to do", he answered, sluring a bit. Noli leant down and whispered "Good!" loudly in his ear. Then she turned to Teal'c.

"Teal'c! Dance!" They had prepared the jukebox with quarters and it was going on its second song. "Yeah, come on Teal'c", Sam joined in. To the girls' enjoyment he actually got up and let himself be stiffly led around.

Jack watched the trio return to the dancefloor. Sam looked like she was having fun. He hadn't seen her outside of work for ages, it was different. It told of something else, some other part of life that didn't involve life threatening adventures and military ranking. Normality. A place where there were sunday dinners and walks in the park and things were allowed to develop as they would.

Jack looked down and nailed his eyes to the table. He couldn't sit here and ogle Sam like this, it was no good. The best thing to do was just to get out of the whole situation.

"I'm going home, Danny. You have a good night now. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." Jack got up.

"You're leaving already?" Daniel was surprised.

"Yeah. Tell the guys hey." Jack left without any further explanation and Daniel was left to his own drunken musings, which in itself wasn't too bad. A few minutes into his ponderings about the development of alcoholic beverages in different worlds he felt Noli's hand land on his shoulder again, but this time without digging into his sore muscles.

"Hey! Whatcha doing here all by yourself? Where's Jack?" She sank into the seat next to him and grabbed Jack's unfinished beer. Daniel shrugged.

"He went home. I dunno."

"Oh. Well, then he won't mind." She took a deep gulp and was run through by a shiver as the cold liquid tickled her throat. Funny how easily beer was sliding down this evening, she thought. She also thought quickly about the fact that she'd be feeling the consequences tomorrow, but she really didn't care. It had been a long couple of weeks filled with the thrill of getting to know new materia combined with the worries of having her secret revealed, and someone had tried to severely hurt her new friends, and herself in the process. She could still remember the foul feeling of rancid metal in her mouth from lunch and was going to spare no effort to wash it out.

Daniel didn't seem to have a problem downing his drinks either. Noli was perhaps a little hazy on the details, but she knew they were both way ahead of the others. She had the feeling he was carrying just as much, probably much more, weight on his shoulders and wished to drink it away for at least one evening. And if it was so, she certainly didn't begrudge him a little fun. She leaned back and looked at him. He looked far away, like something had caught his thoughts.

"Hey." Noli nudged him with her bottle. He turned his head to her a little too fast and blinked dizzily. "Will you dance with us?" Daniel hesitated. "Come on", she coaxed. "Just a little dance." She stood up and poked his shoulder. "Or I could just stay here and find more myoses." At that outlook Daniel let himself be led to the dancefloor. There wasn't much rythm in him at the moment, but since none of the others were taking their dancing seriously it didn't seem to matter and he actually enjoyed himself.

A few dances later Sam and Teal'c felt it was time to call it a night. Somewhere in their minds lingered the notion that tomorrow would contain hard work and looking over their shoulder until this inside threat was resolved. They both agreed, however, that this little visit to normal land had brought some new welcome energy into them all.

Daniel and Noli stayed on a little bit longer, as they felt the need to have compared at least three different kinds of beer during the evening. Perhaps they were staying just a little too late, drinking just a little too much, but their conversation was just too interesting to abandon, filled as it were with silly word play and snorting giggles. Finally though, they also called it a night and went home.