AN: And we're off...another one coming out of the gate in one unedited sitting. Enjoy peeps, enjoy...

AN2: Location chosen from Google Earth.

Summary: Q24:Very early Season 1. Jack has a job for his new Captain. One which he knows she will be reluctant to do. So Jack decides to frame the request in the form of an order. How will things work out for Sam now that she has been given an impossible task? K PLUS rated (for mild language) Jack/Sam Friendship/Humour nonsense-fic.

QUESTION 23 "YOU THERE...I'VE GOT A JOB FOR YOU.

Jack grinned to himself as he sauntered up to the door of Captain Carter's lab. This was one task he was really not sorry he was allowed to delegate. He knock on the frame and glance in. "Hey Carter, you there?" His view gave him his answer before she had a chance to speak.

Sam looked up from her microscope when she heard her CO's voice. "Ah, yeah. Right here Sir."

"Well good!" Jack breezed. "I've got a job for you."

Sam canted her head. "Yeah, Sir?"

"Uh-huh." Jack drawled and Carter narrowed her eyes slightly.

"What...what kind of job?" she asked, haltingly.

Jack rubbed his hands together briskly and almost bounced. "You...are to teach Daniel how to walk!" he announced.

Sam blinked. "What?" Confused didn't cover it and why did the thought evoke a terrible sense of dread in the pit of her stomach?

Jack was grinning mercilessly. "He broke his ankle on a forest path Carter, on a perfectly flat planet. Now that he is better your orders are to take him out into the wild and teach him how not to fall over...or at the very least teach him not to grab people as he does." The image of Daniel and Teal'c tumbling to the ground made him wince even now.

The set of Sam's shoulders dropped literally by inches, her face fell even further. 'Well crap!' she thought to herself. If ever there was an impossible task? "Um..."

"Might I suggest you start with the suburbs?" Jack teased loudly, cutting off any chance she had of defending herself. "Then maybe a park or something. Nothing with too many bushes. You know how he is with them!"

She did. If ever there was a man who knew how to fall into shrubbery it was Daniel Jackson...usually because he had just sneezed. However, admitting that fact would doom her completely so instead she pushed slowly to her feet. "Sir, Daniel can manage quite fine really."

"Ankle, Carter." he reminded her pointedly. "Train him. Hammond's orders."

"Wouldn't it be better for-?" Carter asked but was once again cut off before she had a chance to try and worm her way out of it.

"Nope, Teal'c is still mad at him. Besides I want you to do it. That way..." His grin stretched even further as he paused.

Carter's features fell fully into the doldrums. She waited until he finished his sentence, knowing that whatever it was he said would be the end of the discussion. Her fate was sealed.

He leaned in close to her ear. "The next time he falls over you won't be so quick to make the accident my fault. Understand...Captain?"

Sam sighed, she could not really argue with that one. She knew the moment she had said it in the infirmary that there would be payback, but in fairness Jack had pushed the man. Just a gentle 'shut the hell up' shove, but it had been enough. "Yes Sir. I understand." Her voice was resigned as she responded, her eyes sad. This was going to take up a heck of a lot of her time. It really, really was.

Three days later Sam was stomping her way through The Mountain towards the locker rooms when she bumped into Jack on the corner.

"Wow, easy there Carter!" he called out in surprise before appraising the state of her non-uniformed attire. "What happened?" he asked as a strong stench emanated from her.

"Don't Sir. Just don't." she warned venomously. Looking down at the damp squelchy mud that dripped off the entire left side of her body and had subsequently filled her boot she flung her arms out. "This, is all your fault Sir!" she spat, glaring up at him.

Jack knew better than to actually laugh at her but it took all of his restraint just to manage the task. His silence must have belied his amusement though because her glared turned truly murderous and it really did almost frightened him. "Where ah, where did you take him?" he asked, his tone suddenly meek.

Sam seethed as she spoke. "Rampart Park!"

Jack's eyebrows shot up. "That dog walking place over on Lexington?" he asked incredulously.

Carter felt herself rise up onto the verge of a catastrophic explosion. She could not let that happen so instead she pushed past her CO. "Yeah. The dog walking place. And Colonel?" she said turning and pointing to her right knee. "That right there...that's not even mud...and neither is what I stepped on!"

Jack grimaced slightly as he recognised first the source of the smell and then the slow seep of blood from the knee of her torn jeans. Maybe it had been unfair to ask her to shoulder this alone? "Jeez, sorry Captain." he offered. "You okay?"

The sigh that broke through Sam was more of the exhausted kind than anything else. "Yeah Sir I'm fine. It's just a graze. But if you really don't mind I think I'd like to go get cleaned up now. Especially given what I have trod on in the last half hour...and kicked at Daniel." she grumbled, remembering how the man had grabbed her arm bringing her knee down onto the jagged surface of the only rock in the whole area before she toppled sideways into a pile of mulch and mud. She had got to her feet, shouted at him, stepped back into dog dirt and then kicked it at him before growling angrily and marching off past a group of teenagers who found the whole thing too hilarious for words.

"Sure Carter, go ahead. Sorry I delayed you. Oh, one more thing..." Quirking his lip slightly he stepped fractionally closer, knowing he was taking a risk. "Daniel...where, where is he?"

Sam did not even want to dignify that with a response so she turned on her heel and once again took up her angry stomping stride. On the corner she flung angry words back over her shoulder. "He's probably still rolling around in the mulch pile in the park Sir." With that she disappeared, only to stick her head back round the corner. "Oh and one more thing Colonel. I'm done! 'Project Teach Daniel To Walk' is no longer my problem. I quit!" and she was gone, for real this time.

Jack hung his head. "Damn!" he exclaimed quietly to himself. "I was sure Carter would be able to manage this. I wonder if Teal'c has forgiven him yet?" he mused as he rubbed his hand across his chin. That was highly doubtful saying as how the tumble had been the second in just a matter of days. Then again if you didn't ask, you didn't get and Jack would do just about anything to get out of this task. Muttering to himself, he turned and headed off in the direction of the big guy's permanent quarters. "Please Teal'c." he begged quietly to himself. "Please don't let me down!"

His words were cut off when further down the corridor the door to the female locker room slammed shut.

END

AN: He he, silly SG fun :) Poor Carter, she really got the short end of the stick that time! And yeah I know, Daniel isn't quite that clumsy but the I found the notion funny!