"Toilets. That's what I miss."

Probably the day won't end in disaster. Daniel wishes that weren't the best he feels like he can hope for.

"We missed you," Carter says. Two years and the world gone to hell, and she sounds like maybe he went up to Minnesota for a week or had a bad bout of the flu.

"Ow," Daniel said. "Ow, ow, ow." He tried sitting up, looked around in some confusion at the hospital room surrounding him, and sank back to the floor. "Usually it's a Waffle House," he murmured, and then, "Ow" as an afterthought.



"I'm so sorry," said the man standing across the room, nervously glancing at his watch. "This is all my fault. Well, not that you're here, and not in a Waffle House, which – well, I don't know whose fault that is. I don't understand that, to be perfectly honest. But the rest of it, which you don't actually know about, but I assure you is probably more confusing than not being in a Waffle House, is that--"



Daniel looked down at himself, and back up at the man. "Are you Tok'ra?" he broke in.



"No, I'm Ned," Ned said.

When they were younger.

Well.

Daniel was younger.

Jack's hair was brown.

When they were younger, before Jack's knees gave out for good.

Jackson took the ship from a dead man, not long after the first floods hit and it was only the two of them left.

“We won’t survive on this raft for long,” Jackson had said.

Cam had agreed. The boat was bigger--not huge--but there was just enough room for two men to sleep below deck. Still, he has to wonder if the man had been shot before or after Jackson found him.

These training scenarios are intended to assess base readiness and review policies regarding certain scenarios that may occur in daily operations. They are not intended solely to provide a chance for you to shoot your co-workers, whether or not they deserve it.

(Daniel leaned over Sam's shoulder as she read the email out loud. "Jack?"

Jack looked up from where he was fiddling with the electromagnowhoosit on Sam's lab bench. "Yah?"

"You edited this memo after Hammond was done with it, didn't you."

Jack's lips tipped up. "What gave it away?"

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Oh, nothing.")

Teal’c sits nearly backlit by orange candlelight that reminds her of energy pulses; what light wraps around him is absorbed into the gold brown of his skin, the black of his shirt, the curls of his hair. In the grey of the ship, Vala yearns for blues or greens or reds. She wonders if she can do any better than convincing Sam to wear something other than a uniform; wonders if the best Daniel can do is put on green BDUs for the day. It is not enough for her to wear a feather boa any longer; she cannot see her own appearance without adopting the more vain aspects of her former tenant. And Vala knows her shipmates do not notice whether her pigtails have ribbons or not. Pink or not. Vala does not wear gold. But clothes are a fleeting entertainment anyway. With the timescales she’s facing in this particular torture scheme, she needs a longer-term fun. A brighter color, that she can see; one that will have lasting effects. She is desperate.

The Doctor's precision as they discuss the authenticity of certain proto-Meroitic texts cemented their academic acquaintance.

His whimsical tirade on false positives in Aztec crime-solving, however, was what inspired Daniel to invite him out for a beer.

"Apparently not, no. What's the plan?" "Don't get killed on our fifth mission." "That's a plan?" "It's a fervent prayer."

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Cam grumbled, and he heard Carter and Jackson laughing in the rain ahead of him.

"It always does, Mitchell," Carter said, and the smirk in her voice sounded affectionate to Cam's ears. "It always does."

Cam leans forward. It's creepy, yeah, but it's a puzzle, and Jackson's fascinating enough that he wants to take the time to figure the guy out. "You think," he says. "You don't remember?"

Death wasn’t so much of a milestone for SG-1 anymore; Daniel alone had reduced it to more of a mile…pebble. But this, Jack had to admit, this was something new.