Overtime
written by: Ozymandia
dana@ozymandia.org
Summary:
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Spoils nothing, set towards the end of season 3.
Category: Humor
Pairing: None
Warning: None
Disclaimer: They don't belong to me, and neither does anything else currently
in my possession. Suing
me is useless, and will bring you nothing but lawyer's fees.
Author's Note:This was to answer a challenge put forth by petty: Jack comes
home from
work, tired. He hears a shower when he comes in, and goes upstairs to find
Daniel
in his shower. "Daniel, why are you taking a shower in my house?"
Daniel calls from the shower, "Well it's kind of a long story. Can you
hand me
a towel?"
Jack pulled into his driveway after a long day at the base.
He'd stayed very
late tonight, trying to finish off the mountain of paperwork that had been
piling up on his desk. There had been so many missions lately that there
seemed to be little time to get the day to day stuff done. When General
Hammond had slipped into the conversation that the base's Health and
Safety Committee was on the verge of condemning Jack's office because of
avalanche concerns, the Colonel had decided it might be time to pull some
overtime and get the work done. He unlocked his front door, thinking only
of a warm bed and eight or ten hours of good deep sleep. Jack opened the
door, and immediately was struck with the feeling that something was wrong.
He never left lights on in the house when he was away, but the fixture in
the
hall was on. There was a pair of strange shoes in the foyer, and a plain black
duffel bag sitting by the couch. Jack closed the door quietly behind him,
hoping
that he hadn't been heard yet, wondering briefly about thieves who took their
shoes off at the door.
Walking silently into the living room, Jack glanced around,
noting that nothing
had been moved or removed. Then he heard water running in the guest
bathroom. 'Great,' he thought, 'of all the robbers to break into my house,
I
just HAD to get the obsessive compulsive clean freak.'
Jack cracked open the door to the bathroom. A pile of clothes
lay on the floor
in a jumbled heap. He recognized the shirt as one that Carter had bought
Daniel for his birthday last year. He relaxed, grateful that it wasn't a thief,
but
confused as to why Daniel was in his house showering at 2 am. Jack opened
his
mouth to speak, then grinned evilly and decided to go for the second best
option
of getting his friend's attention.
Jack walked over to the toilet and pressed down on the handle.
The loud flush
was quickly drowned out by a scream from the shower. Jack bit his lip to keep
from laughing out loud as a string of profanity cleared the lips of his good
friend,
the one with the double PhD. The water shut off abruptly, and the shower curtain
started to move as if it were about to be pulled back...
Jack decided now would be a good time to announce himself. "Oh Daniel?"
The shower curtain snapped quickly as the younger man thought
better of opening
it. "Yes, Jack?"
"What are you doing showering at my house? Don't you have
your own home to go
to?"
"Oh, um, yes.. well, you see that's a long story."
"Really? How about you fill me in on it. I'll go make some
coffee." Jack turned on his
heels, stopping when he heard Daniel call his name. "Yes, Daniel?"
"Would you mind passing me a towel?"
~~~~
A short time later Daniel walked into the kitchen. Jack was
busy unloading the
dishwasher, slipping cutlery into a drawer under the counter. The coffee was
ready, and
two mugs were resting on the table. The older man snagged the pot, and poured
hot
coffee for both of them. Daniel mumbled his thanks as Jack joined him at the
table.
Daniel inhaled the scent of the coffee, letting the heat of
it warm his hands. Even after
being back on Earth for the last three years, he still found himself feeling
chilled on all
but the warmest nights in Colorado. He wondered if he would ever get used
to the
weather here in the States.
Daniel was startled out of his thoughts by Jack clearing his
throat. "So you were going
to tell me what you were doing here?"
Daniel flinched. "Ah, yes, about that... well, you know
that guy that moved into the
apartment above mine?"
"You mean the one with the wild late night parties?"
Jack pulled a face, and Daniel
smiled, remembering the evening last week when he'd invited the team to his
apartment
for dinner and a video, and they hadn't been able to hear a thing for the
loud rock music
thumping through the ceiling. Jack and Teal'c had gone upstairs to have a
little talk with
the good man, and whatever they had said, Daniel hadn't heard a peep out of
him for
days.
"Yeah that's the one. Well I came home today to find that
he'd managed to overflow his
washing machine. There's a lot of water damage in my apartment, most of it
in my
bedroom. I was too tired to deal with it tonight, and I still had a key for
here..."
"So you decided to come over and crash here." Daniel
smiled shyly at Jack, knowing
that he had probably pushed his luck a bit, coming over uninvited and unannounced.
The older man chuckled, and Daniel knew that once again his friend had read
him like
an open book. "It's OK Daniel, the guest room is always open for you."
The two men sat at the table in silence for a few minutes, sipping their coffee.
"So." Daniel looked up at Jack as the older man set
his empty mug on the table. "A
water leak... that's got to be deadly for the stuff you have in that place."
The archaeologist grimaced. "Oh yeah. I'm sure I've lost
quite a few books. The artifacts
should stand up a lot better, I hope. My insurance company is going to hate
me."
"That sucks. Tell you what, how about tomorrow morning
we go to the base and see if
we can round up a few volunteers to help with the clean up, and \whatever
restoration
might be necessary. I'm sure we could convince Hammond to allow it."
Daniel was dumbfounded. For all the teasing about "rocks"
and books, Jack could still
surprise him. He might not understand everything that Daniel said or cared
about, but the
fact that it was important to the young man was never forgotten. "Thanks,"
Daniel
stammered, not sure of what else to say.
"Since we seem to have a busy day ahead of us, what say
we call it a night." Jack started
clearing the table, and placed the mugs in the sink. "There's a pair
of sweats in the guest
room you can wear tonight... extra blankets are in the closet." Jack
turned to leave,
stopping at the door to the hall. "Have a good night."
Then Daniel was alone in the kitchen. He smiled, grateful to
have found such good friends,
and glad he had let them into his life. He stood up and headed towards the
guest room,
looking forward to a good night's sleep at last.