Disclaimer - MGM/Gekko/Double Secret own them.
Jack/Jonas UST. Possibly a little Jack/Daniel, too. Suitable for all.
Post Fall Out fic, therefore, spoilers.
*smooches nellie*
*
"You wanna hear something funny?"
The answer to that was most definitely yes. These last few days he'd been...unsettled. Distracted. Feeling decidedly not himself. He put it down to negotiating with those Kelownan - sorry, *Langeran* - idiots. That kind of thing tended to really irritate him (though there was also some vague sense of satisfaction from how he'd dealt with said idiots).
Funny was good. Funny was normal.
As normal as he ever got these days, anyway.
"Sure."
Daniel stretched in his chair, yawning a little. Jack had wandered into his office about ten minutes ago, bored and actually up to date with his...okay, a large majority of his paperwork.
He'd given no excuse for being there. Ever since Daniel had come back, none had been needed for any of them.
Eventually finishing what was quite possibly the longest yawn in the history of mankind, Daniel sat back, and spoke.
"He called you Jack."
Busy trying to decipher the notes in Daniel's latest journal, Jack frowned. "Who did?"
"Jonas."
It wasn't funny. It wasn't even remotely funny.
The words he barely understood made even less sense as he'd apparently lost the ability to read at all. "He did?"
Daniel was nodding. Jack hadn't looked up from the journal, but he knew Daniel was nodding.
"When he left, he mentioned you. Called you Jack."
That swirly thing. What was that swirly thing? "That's interesting."
"Very interesting. I mean especially considering the last time we saw him it was 'Colonel O'Neill' this and 'Colonel O'Neill' that."
Oh, duh. It was an S. Stupid. "Maybe he's loosened up," Jack offered.
"'Loosened up'?" Daniel mimicked. "I don't think you can get much looser than Jonas." Apparently thinking over what he'd just said, he quickly continued. "Ah, and let's not take that out of context, okay?"
"Sure," Jack said, trying to remember the alphabet and string some of those pesky forgettable letters together to form a coherent...umm... "Jonas isn't loose. Got it."
"Jack?"
"Hmm?" A B C D E F G, H I...
"You okay?"
...K, L M N O P... "Fine."
"Then since when did you become so interested in my work?"
Huh. He sat up and finally looked at him. "Daniel, I resent the implication that I never pay attention to what you do. Yes, it's not an interest I particularly share and yes, it often bores me so much that my brain turns into jelly and dribbles out of my nose-"
"And *that's* a charming mental image."
"-but I do sometimes appreciate all the things you translate and figure out and you're really not buying this are you?"
Damn.
"No."
Damn.
Daniel kept talking. "Look, I'm not sure I particularly want to delve into the mind of Jack O'Neill, but...I think you should."
"I should?"
"You should."
"I should delve into my own mind?"
"Yes. It's a scary concept, I realise-"
Ha. "Daniel..."
"But this is not the kind of thing a person freaks out about. It's not the kind of thing you freak out about. So..."
Jack hated it when Daniel was right. "Do some delving?"
Now Daniel nodded. "Exactly."
"I'm gonna go," Jack said suddenly, lifting a hand and pointing a thumb in the general direction of the exit. "Things to write. Minds to delve." Not that he had any serious intention of doing either.
"Of course," Daniel responded, no doubt just as certain of the same thing.
Jack made it at least three steps away before he paused, turned back, and said it. "You know...part of me wishes I could say that I actually missed this."
Daniel being Daniel recognised the statement for exactly what it was. Grinning with his head lowered, he reached a hand out and pulled his journal back towards him. "Get out of here, Jack. Why don't you ask General Hammond if you can pay a quick visit to Kelowna?"
"Oh, shut up."
~FINIS