Jack scanned the empty treeline for the eightieth time in the last fifteen minutes, found nothing, and shifted his head side to side to crack his neck before threading his fingers together behind his head. His shoulder blades appreciated the movement after so much stillness.

He had an awful feeling that this was about to become his life – standing around, watching Daniel translate things. He understood the purpose of it – theoretically, any info about the enemy was good info – but who'd teamed up with who to defeat who three thousand years ago wasn't particularly relevant to who the big baddy was right now. Teal'c had a helluva lot more info on that, he'd think, though the alien's point of view was obviously skewed toward Apophis' side of things.

On the plus side, Jack was getting older, but he wasn't ready to leave the field yet. At least playing guard duty kept him off a desk.

On the minus side, he was well aware that a horde of Jaffa could come through those trees at any moment, and if he got too used to being a rent-a-cop, he'd be all but worthless when that moment came. He needed action, and he planned to keep himself in top form until his creaky knees absolutely, positively refused to make it up that ramp.

Even then, he wasn't sure he'd take a desk. He'd probably just resign. Again.

Which reminded him, he could have spent the last two hours fishing instead of standing here...

Movement caught his eye, and he glanced over to see Teal'c back up a few steps as Daniel got to his feet. "Done with that one?" Jack called.

"Yeah," the geek called back.

"So, what?" He surveyed the field of rubble and broken off pillars scattered around it. "Nine more?" Eighteen more hours. Two days.

"No. Done with this one," Daniel called back, his finger tracing a square around the text on that side of the stone. To emphasize his point, he stepped solidly around the corner to the next face of the same pillar and sat down.

"Oh, for cryin' out loud," Jack muttered, shifting his gaze back to the treeline. Ten pillars, four sides was forty sides. Two hours each made eighty hours, which was... His lower back twinged at the very thought of it. Irked, he started a nice, leisurely walk around the outside of the ruins.

"Everything all right, sir?" Captain Carter asked as he approached.

"No," he said crisply. "This bites."

A grin flashed across her face, lighting up her features, and something in his chest lifted.

And immediately hardened again. It irked him that he had a soft spot for her already.

"Sir?" she asked, and he realized he'd frowned at her.

"Nothing. Never mind." His eyes roamed the treeline again, mostly to get them away from her. "If he's gonna be at this for a week, don't grow roots here, huh? Take a walk. Pop a squat. Something."

"Thank you, sir." She immediately shifted to half-lean, half-sit on the crumbling wall behind her.

"I think we're gonna be stuck here awhile," he said, moving to continue on his circle.

"Great." She sounded as thrilled about that as he felt.