Lectures and Lisasons

By Sarah


“And so we can assume, from the inscriptions on this tablet, shown here, that the Ancients knew of the Gaou’lds long before they were considered a threat to the...galaxy in general.” Dr. Daniel Jackson waited expectantly for this particular nugget of hard-won information to soak into the brains of his audience. Lt. Col.Dr. Samantha Carter Ph.D. Astrophysics, and other related “waaay smarter than you” stuff, of course, got it right away. For the rest of Sg-1, past and present, it took a few moments. And let’s not even go into how Jack was yawning ostensibly at the other end of the table. For the first time, Daniel had wished he hadn’t bothered to come from D.C. just to hear this lecture. Well, he knew that his lecture wasn’t the only reason Jack was in town. (A certain blonde-haired super-scientist had a little to do with it.). And if Daniel had to admit, it was nice to see his best friend again, even if he was a pain in the ass.

~*~
Sometime Later:
“Oh please! It wasn’t that long!” Daniel protested to Mitchell as they left the briefing.
“I needed my whole cup of coffee, and then some.” Cameron retorted.
“Well-but.” Daniel sputtered for a response.
“Speaking of coffee, you know those two girls at the coffee shop this morning?” Mitchell ignored Daniel.
“What about them?” Daniel took a sip of the dregs of his Breve (he’d not had time to finish it before the lecture)
“Yes Danny-boy, what about girls?” Jack asked, coming alongside the two men, his classic “snarky Colonel” grin of yore plastered all over his face.
“Cameron was ogling the coffee shop girl this morning.” Daniel said blandly.
“And this is news how?” Jack looked disappointed. “I thought you had something good for me, Colonel.” He looked at Mitchell.
“I dunno, Dr. Jackson seemed to doing some looking of his own.”
“Do tell!” Jack stopped and turned towards Daniel, effectively blocking his escape route into Sam’s lab.
“That’s called friendly conversation, Mitchell. You should try it sometime.” Daniel said.
“Does that come before or after the make-out session in the backseat?” Mitchell asked. Daniel rolled his eyes.
“So Sparky,” Jack looked towards Cameron, “since the space monkey is being less than forth coming, why don’t you brief me on this latest development in Mission: Get Daniel Jackson A Social Life.
“Well Sir,” Cameron assumed a proper stance. “Dr. Jackson was seen exchanging friendly conversation” he looked significantly at Daniel “at approximately 0700 hours on the corner of Mahogany and Elder wine inside a location code: Coffeehouse with a young female barista (Daniel looked surprised Mitchell knew the proper term for someone who specializes in making coffee drinks) of uncertain ethnic origin, approximately twenty-something years in age.”
“Physical description of said female?” Jack barked.
“5’7, dark hair and eyes, hot in an artsy sort of way sir.”
“I see, solider. And am I to understand she was in the company of another unknown?”
“Yes SIR!” Mitchell could have lifted off he was saluting so straight. “6’4, light eyes, brown hair, extremely hot sir.”
“You guys are worse than women.” Sam said from inside her lab. The three guys turned sheepishly. The hallway had been empty, and they’d thought Sam’s lab as well.
“You know the whole base can hear you, right?”
“What?” Daniel yelped, turning several shades of red.
“Relax, Jackson-she’s just messing with ya-they’d have to get the tapes from security and play them back first.”
“I’m just saying, Sam ducked back under another bewildering piece of technology, “that conceivably the whole base could hear your conversation.” The guys made faces at her between the machinery.
“I’m here!” Vala announced, bounding into the room with the air that “now the party can start.”
“Oh, good?” Daniel ventured, backing away from her as though she might explode, or at the least, possibly damage his person.
“Yes, it is! So, what are we doing?” She wanted to know and leaned over the particle beam generator that Sam was fixing.
“I’m fixing it.” Sam said, knowing that if she even bothered to explain it wouldn’t so much go over Vala’s head as she would tune out after a couple sentences if the explanation didn’t involve something fun-like treasure. At Sam’s work table, the guys of SG-1, minus Teal’c (he’d been off-base to visit his son (newlywed marital problems, apparently) were standing around fiddling with things (Daniel excepted, he knew better) and still discussing the morning at the coffeehouse.
“So what exactly is this “coffeehouse” place?” Vala asked aside to Sam, as they both watched Jack try not to break an extremely sensitive and extremely expensive piece of equipment he didn’t know how to pronounce. “A place to drink coffee and meet women? Like a Bar?”
“Well-not exactly,” Sam was amused that it hadn’t taken Vala long to grasp the meaning of the English word “bar” (Or the guys to take her to one, for that matter.)
“The first part is more or less accurate” Sam explained, “depending on what you consider coffee,” Vala looked confused, so Sam quickly moved on, figuring she’d leave the intricacies of coffee to someone like Daniel, “although I can see why might get that impression.” She glanced at the three men who were laughing over-well she didn’t really think she needed to know.
“Ah-come on, you know you enjoyed it - ” Cameron mocked to Daniel’s back.
“Actually,” Daniel said coming over to join them and thereby yet another one of Cameron’s jibes, “While coffeehouses are often frequented by people who are looking for a good cup of “Joe” (explanation of Joe here) it’s really the atmosphere the frequent visitors are looking for.”
“And what kind of atmosphere is that? Scantily clad earth women carrying large mugs of steaming drink close to their heaving bosoms?” Daniel looked alternately confused and aghast at Vala while Sam tried unsuccessfully not to laugh.
“Er-NO. Apparently someone” he glared at Cameron, “has been confusing you with descriptions of other available and somewhat degrading establishments available on this planet.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean Peep houses, I know what those are-they have them off-world too, you know.” Vala said in an all too familiar and chipper tone. Daniel sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose while Sam and Jack shot fond looks overhead. Finally, someone else to torture our Danny while I’m away. Jack’s seemed to say.
“No-I, ANYWAYS, with a coffeehouse he stressed the word, it’s all about ambience, it needs to be a bohemian sort of place, typically a haven for writers, poets, musicians, artists, and other creative types. It can, or not, be against the majority ideal of government or “against the government” itself. Often filled with art considered by the populace to “out-there” or “kitschy.” Basically they’re places to go when you need to just get away from everything and spend some time a lone, or-with friends.” Daniel finally dropped out of lecture mode and finished.
“Well according to my friend Cameron here, you certainly found some friends.” Vala could make tying your shoes sound suggestive.
“Ah, give Danny a break,” Jack broke in, “It’s not like he’s got a life or anything.”
“Ja-ack!” Daniel gave his traditional space-monkey whine. “I have a life, it’s called study of ancient and foreign cultures, meeting new peoples, saving the galaxy?”
“Okay, he has no social life.” Jack amended, slapping his best friend on the back. Daniel just rolled his eyes and sighed.
“Come on, let’s get some lunch, huh Point Dexter?” Jack said and made for the door, “Better hurry up Carter, or I’ll eat all that blue J-ello you like.”
“Sure you will, sir.” Sam replied deadpan. “I’ll meet you guys there.” She was surprised to see Vala lingering, almost thoughtfully by her side.
“It’s really just one of those things you have to experience.” Sam said about their earlier conversation.
“Yeah?” Vala said almost wistfully. Truth be told she didn’t really get out as much as it seemed. For one thing, Gen. Landry was a little hesitant to let a personality the size of Vala loose on (mostly) innocent little Colorado Springs. He wasn’t sure the city would ever recover-at least, he’d been worried every time she went off base. And unbeknownst to pretty much everyone but Sam (and occasionally Daniel) Vala actually spent a lot of time on base studying. Ever since her supposed “shrink exam” she’d undergone to join SG-1, Vala had got it into her that she had to ensure her place on the team. When presented with something she wanted that badly she was nearly insatiable in her quest for knowledge. It had really surprised and impressed Sam. In all that time, as much as Vala put on a good and peppy face, Sam had discovered that while Vala had definitely made the guy’s locker room talk-she hadn’t really made any friends outside of SG-1.
“You know what? Why don’t we stop by this place Daniel and Cameron are so crazy about tomorrow morning on the way to work? We don’t have a briefing ‘till 1000 hours.” Sam offered. “Then we can both find out what all the fuss is about.”
“Really?” Vala grasped the other woman’s olive branch eagerly.
“Yeah, sure, why not?”
“What time are you going to pick me up?”
“Oh-ummm,” Sam had forgotten she’d have to go back to the base to get Vala and then back again for work. “How does six-thirty sound?”
“Horrid! No, six-thirty sounds great. See you then!” Vala hopped off the top of the table and headed out the door only to pop her head back in a few minutes later. “Thanks, umm, for-“
“I know-and you’re welcome.” Sam offered her megawatt smile.
“Okay-six-thirty!” Vala called back as she skipped merrily to the commissary. It occurred to Sam that perhaps filling someone like Vala with caffeine wasn’t the most prudent of ventures.

~*~
“So, taking on charity cases now, are we?” Jack commented idly, leaning in Sam doorframe. She still hadn’t made it to lunch and Jack had excused himself from lunch early on the pretense of checking up early on her.
“Oh no sir, I started doing that a long time ago.” Sam let a small smirk lift the corner of her mouth.
“Oh really?” Jack pushed off the doorframe with his back foot, pulling the door shut behind him. It was 1500 hours on the nose. “Do tell.” Sam looked down as a timer beeped from her laptop.
“ Well¼there was this one smart-ass Commanding Officer in the beginning of my career who just couldn’t seem to inter-act on a social level like a decent human being.” Sam began, closing the distance between them.
“Yeah? And how’d that turn out?” O’Neill hovered over his wife, all the more stunning with wayward hair and grease-spots.
“Oh, I think it came out alright.” Sam smiled against his shirt and lifted her lips for a kiss.
“How long did you say the cameras would be re-routed again?” Jack asked after a moment.
“Twenty-three minutes and forty seconds.” Sam said a bit breathlessly.
“Oh. Plenty of time then.” Jack muttered cheerfully against the waist of her BDU’s.