Disclaimer: Still not my characters.
"Okay, Daniel," Jack said when they were all seated around Sam's workbench. "What's so important?"
Sam looked down at the table in front of her. She was trying to figure out what had happened, or almost happened, in the locker room. She was positive the Colonel would have kissed her if Daniel and Teal'c hadn't interrupted them. What had that been about? Not that she hadn't wanted him to kiss her, far from it, but she never thought it might actually happen, or even be something he thought about. They'd flirted a lot over the years, but he hadn't been serious about it, had he? Sure, she'd often wondered if maybe it weren't a bit more, but then told herself she was being silly, and that, while he cared for her, there would never truly be anything between them. Perhaps she'd been wrong. Or perhaps she was just thinking too hard. She looked back up at Daniel, hoping to distract herself from a line of thinking that would get her nowhere.
Daniel flipped the large tome open to about midway, and started pulling out pieces of paper, many of them scraps, that he'd written notes on. Jack knew he wasn't the most organized person when it came to note taking, but Daniel took the cake.
Leaning in to get a closer look, Jack realized one of the notes was written on the back of a gum wrapper in near microscopic print. "Have trouble finding paper, Danny–boy? I know our budget keeps getting slashed, but I'm certain we can find you something better than napkins, gum wrappers and receipts to write on."
Daniel pushed up his glasses as he glanced up. "Huh? Oh, yeah. No, I was on a roll, and simply didn't want to leave to find more, so I just grabbed whatever was lying on my desk."
Picking up one of the receipts, Jack turned it over. "Gummy bears, a bottle of sinus medication, rice milk and a box of Cheerios? Living large there Daniel! Just don't overdo it. I'd hate to have to come bail you out in the middle of the night. Who drinks rice milk anyway? I didn't even know rice could be milked. How does that work, I wonder?"
Daniel snatched it back, his face reddening slightly.
"Don't worry Daniel, I've seen receipts for a bag of Hershey's Kisses, a six pack of Guinness, and a People magazine in his car." Sam told him.
"Dammit, Carter, quit giving away my secrets. Besides, the People was for Teal'c, right buddy?"
Teal'c quirked a brow in the direction of Jack's uniform. "It was not."
Jack scoffed, his arms gesturing around in the air. "Do you not know how this game is played by now?"
Sam chuckled, and reveled in the camaraderie, but decided they really needed to know what Daniel had discovered, and put an end to their banter. "Daniel?"
"Spoil sport," she heard Jack mutter under his breath.
"Right, absolutely," Daniel agreed. He began laying his scraps of paper out into something that clearly made sense to him. Sam seemed to understand this method, but Jack thought it was totally insane. "Okay. See the problem was that I thought the language was solely ancient based, but it turns out it's more of a Latin-Ancient hybrid, that also includes some older version of Goa'uld, and pictogram style letters. Kind of like when the Egyptians moved from hieroglyphs that have their own meaning, to each glyph being more like a letter instead of just a sound. It's fascinating to see how it mirrors so many of our own languages, even though it was on a whole other planet. See, this letter, isn't a typical letter, like I thought, but instead-"
"Daniel," Jack said with measured patience. "I'm sure all this, linguisty stuff is wildly exciting to you archaeology geeks, and I mean that in the nicest way, but let's just get down to brass tacks, shall we?"
Deflating from his earlier excitement, Daniel looked down at his notes, but before he could speak again, Jack said in a kinder voice, "Maybe General Hammond could set up some sort of ancient geek night, and you can tell them all about your, um, fascinating stuff here. I'm sure they'll love it."
"You think so?" Daniel asked brightly.
"Why not?" Jack replied. He made a mental note to talk to the General. Daniel drove him crazy on a daily basis, but the least he could do was find something 'fun' for him. If you found that sort of thing fun, which Jack absolutely did not. To each his own.
"Thanks, that sounds great! So, anyway, this line here reads-"
"The point, Daniel, the point," Jack reminded him.
Shifting his notes around, Daniel picked out 2 scraps and held them up, as if to show his proof. "Basically it says that, while you're invisible, you can't-" He glanced over at Sam, clearly embarrassed. "Um, you can't, um…well, you-"
With a slightly annoyed sigh, Teal'c spoke. "What Daniel Jackson is trying, and failing, to say is that you cannot copulate, and will eventually no longer be able to enjoy sexual relations at all. It is apparently irreversible after a certain amount of time."
Sam choked, and wished the floor would open up and swallow her. Being that this was the SGC, stranger things had happened, but she had no such luck at the moment.
"I'm sorry, what?" Jack asked. He slid a quick glance over at Sam, taking in the expression on her face.
"You will no longer be able to-"
Waving his hand, or rather uniform sleeve around, Jack cut him off. "I heard what you said, Teal'c. Daniel, are you sure you translated that correctly."
"Mmm hmm," a still red faced Daniel responded. He looked up briefly when Sam coughed, but looked away almost immediately. Maybe he should have talked to Jack privately.
"But, I haven't…I mean…I don't seem to be…um, feeling the effects of it. Not that I'm having, um, sexual relations, or anything, but um, in the mornings and at other times, um, you know." God, he couldn't believe they were talking about this in front of Carter. Even though she couldn't see his face, he made sure not to even turn his head her way.
Daniel looked at him, or rather toward him, in confusion, until the meaning of Jack's words clicked in his head. "Oh. Oh! Yeah, well, the effects are kind of gradual. I don't know exactly how long it takes for you to notice or anything, but it will happen."
Jack stared at him for a long moment, before speaking. "And you're sure about this?"
"Yeah," Daniel replied.
"Crap," Jack grumbled.
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed stoically.
There was a long silence, when Daniel spoke again. "I mean, if that's you know, not important to you then-"
Jack gave Daniel a glare, not that he could see it, but it made Jack feel better. "Not that it's your business, but yes, it kind of is, thank you."
Sam, who had been looking down during the entire conversation, certain her face was flaming red, chanced a quick glance up. Daniel seemed embarrassed, while Teal'c looked slightly amused. At the sound of a heavy sigh, she flicked her eyes to where the Colonel sat, than quickly back down at her desk.
"Well then, I guess it's settled," Daniel commented. "We'll head back to the planet, and reverse it, right?"
Jack's chair moved back and forth slightly. "Yep, guess so. Go gear up kids, Hammond will probably approve us to leave soon. Very soon, if I have anything to say about it."
When Jack, or rather his uniform, was gone, Daniel and Teal'c both turned their eyes toward Sam. Daniel's expression was questioning, while Teal'c's was stoic as ever, but there was a gleam in his eyes.
"What?" She asked, scrunching her forehead. "Why are you both looking at me, like that?"
Daniel gave her a toothy grin. "Oh, no reason. Just thinking about Jack getting so flustered over what I told him."
"Why wouldn't he be? He's-he's a man, just like everyone else. I mean, the fact that he might not be able to…you know," her face flushed, "is a big deal. I mean, I guess it's a big deal. Wouldn't it be to you? I mean, he's not, um, with anyone now, at least I don't think-not that it's any of my business of course-but he might meet someone one day, and want to…you know. "
Teal'c nodded. "Indeed it would be an issue for me, Major Carter, but I have the feeling that O'Neill has something much more imminent in mind, and is concerned about not being able to reverse the effects."
Daniel snorted. "Imminent. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Of course I think he's had something imminent in mind for years now."
Sam looked between them, suspiciously. "What are you two talking about?"
Daniel started to speak again, but Teal'c put a hand on the younger man's shoulders. "I believe the imminence is up to O'Neill, and Major Carter. Perhaps you should leave well enough alone, Daniel Jackson."
Sam flushed even more. Did they know something? "We should probably get going," she finally told them, getting off her stool.
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.
"Yeah. Got to get Jack back to normal, as soon as possible. You know, for those possible imminent plans." Daniel commented loudly, following her, and Teal'c out of the lab.
"Shut up, Daniel!" Sam snapped. Part of her was secretly thrilled though, at the thought of Colonel O'Neill's possible 'imminent' plans. She sincerely hoped she was part of them. After the incident in the locker room earlier though, she was fairly certain she might be.