budge
by Pares
"Hey."
"Sir."
He leaned both hands on her desk, peering around her desktop pretending to snoop. She could hear the hollow tap of his steel-toed boot against the back of her desk. Jack was more comfortable in fatigues than anyone she'd ever met.
"Can I help you with something?"
"What'd you get Daniel for his birthday?"
She opened her mouth but he held up one hand. "Wait. Don't tell me. It's a book."
She hid her amusement and played along.
"Actually, sir, it is a book. It's a signed early edition of Budge's Egyptian Book of the Dead."
Jack squinted at her.
"Do you really think he needs another book?"
She smiled at him. "Well, it's kind of an injoke, sir. Daniel hates Budge. He thinks he's a hack."
"Ah." He blinked once. "Geek thing?"
"Geek thing," she assured him.
"Hokay. So. I'm drawing a blank of what to get the guy. Any ideas?"
"You know him as well as I do, sir."
"Yeah. But you've got. Female intuition," and he waved his hand slightly to indicate Sam's powerful feminine mystique, apparently.
"Well. What about a sweater? He always seems to be wearing the same one."
He gave her a sour look.
"Guys don't give other guys sweaters, Carter. It's just not done."
"Okay. Well, what about..." She turned to her laptop and typed a few words and clicked around a bit. "Hmm. What about this?"
He stood over her shoulder. "Kinda racy, isn't it?" Jack commented.
"It's a reproduction of the Atlas Farnese in bronze. It's the oldest known representation of the constellations."
Jack looked like he was waiting for something more.
"And he'll like it because..."
"Because you love to stargaze, so he'll associate it with you, and he deciphered the Stargate's code by realizing that symbols on the Stargate were actually--"
"The constellations." He gave her a strangely solemn look. "That's actually pretty cool." He waggled his eyebrows at her. "Do you think he'll get past the part where I'm giving him a statue of a naked guy?"
*
Two days later, they crowded into Daniel's office to bring him cupcakes, courtesy of Cassandra.
"Uh. Carter helped pick it out," Jack hastened to say, when Daniel lifted the statue out of the small wooden box it had been delivered in. "It's got a map of the constellations on it. And it's a copy of something really old, so. I figured you'd like that sort of thing."
"Jack! It's amazing. I don't know what to say."
"Say, 'Thank you, Carter.'" And Jack's little non-smile her way brought a bashful rush of heat to her face. Jack walked up behind her and gave her arm a friendly squeeze as Teal'c set a large box on the
table, and inclined his head slightly.
"May you enjoy many fruitful years upon this planet, Daniel Jackson."
"Thanks, Teal'c. I'll. I'll do that."
Inside the box was a straw cowboy hat, with a wide brim folded so that it nearly touched the high crown.
"O'Neill has presented me with many such hats on notable Earth occasions. It is, as he says, a traditional token of esteem among friends on the anniversary of their birth."
"So it is." She saw Daniel glance at Jack and purse his mouth to keep from smiling before donning the cowboy hat. "How do I look?" He turned to Teal'c for his appraisal.
"Very well."
"Jack?"
"I dunno about you guys, but I'm in the mood for roping a steer. Carter, whattaya say?"
"Steak sounds good to me, sir. Fillian's?"
"Hold on a sec, lemme get Sam's--" He unwrapped the book and frowned at it. That didn't worry her; Daniel's frowns were reflexive, and seldom genuinely suggested his mood. But when he continued to blink at
it, she leaned forward to explain. Jack took her elbow, and she looked at him, confused.
"Give him a second," he said under his breath.
"Budge," Daniel muttered. Then his expression cleared, and he gave a little halting laugh as he thumbed it open. He read her inscription and took two quick steps to give her a quick hug and kiss her cheek. "It's wonderful. Thanks so much."
Jack's eyes were warm and proud and he hitched one shoulder at her, saying See?
"Now howsabout we get out of here so we can eat before Teal'c here faints from hunger." Teal'c cocked a brow at him and Jack headed for the door, pausing only to tip his head at Teal'c and tell him, "You're lookin' a little pale, buddy."
END
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