Coffee Breaks part 3

[dimity_blue]

Daniel stirred slightly, then turned over. Slowly, his eyes opened and he gazed at the world. His view at this time consisted of a blurry vision of Jack's face.

"Evenin'."

"Hmm?"

"Daniel?"

"Hmm."

Jack waited for Daniel's intelligence to start working.

Daniel struggled to sit up, one hand groping for his glasses. "What time is it?"

"Six o'clock."

"Huh?"

"Six o'clock."

"In the evening?"

"Yeah," grinned Jack. "Just in time to head for my place, grab a pizza and a beer and watch the game."

Daniel looked around. "I uh... I was in my office."

"You said you were tired," Jack claimed. "You were gonna grab a nap."

"I did?" Daniel groaned.

"You still got that headache? Want me to fetch the Doc?"

"No." Daniel sighed. "Look, I uh... can't believe I slept all afternoon. What will General Hammond say? I was supposed to be working."

"Relax. We've got three days off. Seems Major Connor is knee deep in naquadah theories and having the time of her life. Course, you've just slept through one of your days off." Jack stood up and waited for Daniel to get to his feet. "Teal'c's gone to visit Ry'ac, so it's just you and me. Meet you at the elevator in ten minutes."

Daniel watched the door shut behind Jack then sat down to put his boots on.

Fifteen minutes later, Jack was still waiting. 'Come on, Danny. Let's get out of here before the Tok'Ra decide they need us to go and save the world again.' He glanced at his watch, pacing back and forth.

"Colonel?"

Jack turned, then looked down at the petite Doctor. "Oh, hi Doc."

"I thought you had a few days off?"

"Yeah, I'm just waiting for... oh, here he is. Geez, Daniel, what did you do? Decide to take another nap?"

"Uh... I uh... I think so."

"Daniel? Are you all right?"

"Oh yeah, Janet, I'm fine. I'm just really tired for some reason." Daniel yawned again.

"Sheesh! You've been sleepin' all day. Come on, Plant Boy, let's move it." Grinning at Janet, Jack grabbed one of Daniel's shoulders and steered him into the elevator.

"Jack! You know how I hate...."

Daniel's protests (and yawns) were silenced as the elevator doors shut. Janet smiled and headed along to the messhall. She'd warned the colonel that Daniel would spend a lot of time sleeping as his body adjusted to being without caffeine. 'Obviously he didn't take me seriously enough.'

~*~

Jack was starting to take Janet's warning seriously. Daniel had fallen asleep in the car and Jack had had to wake him up to get him out of the car and into the house.

"Come on, Daniel, you do know how to walk in a straight line."

"Yeah, I uh...." Daniel yawned again. "Uh... Jack, I can't keep my eyes open."

"Yeah, lack of caf...." Jack bit the words off. With a bit of luck Daniel was too tired to notice.

"Huh?" Daniel managed to focus on Jack. "What did you say?" Another yawn.

Jack thought quickly. "Lack of food, Daniel. And all the sleep you so frequently do without. Geez, every time I go past your door, there you are workin' on yet another rock, tryin' to translate the universe in just one day."

Daniel frowned, scrunching up his eyes in an effort to make his brain work more efficiently. It didn't really work and he fell asleep on Jack's couch with a half formed thought in his head.

By the time the pizza had been delivered and Jack had persuaded Daniel to eat some (accompanied by more decaf coffee), Daniel's half formed thought had escaped and he sat slumped on Jack's couch gazing blearily at the TV screen.

Jack watched the game, firmly keeping his triumphant grin off his face. 'That was a close one.'

Daniel spent the next two days either asleep or attempting to drink his way through the entire coffee bean supply of the Western world. Needless to say he did not get the caffeine he was craving (Jack had also replaced all of his coffee with decaf) so Daniel spent most of the two days asleep. He was still falling asleep at inopportune moments by the time he and Jack returned to the SGC.

~*~

Major Connor had finished having fun with Sam's naquadah reactor, although she had taken the liberty of writing her name on the bottom in the hope of taking it with her when she left. She'd also, being super powered by herbal teas and therefore needing less sleep than lesser mortals, analysed some findings from a UAV. Therefore, the three male members of SG-1 found themselves listening to another of her briefings.

"As you can see, this time the UAV failed to detect any lifesigns whatsoever but it did detect large deposits of naquadah. It is possible, in my opinion," she said, modestly, knowing that she was totally right, "that this is a world rich with naquadah that the Goa'uld know nothing about."

Hammond turned to Jack. "Colonel...."

His words were interrupted by a snore. Jack looked up, and seeing that his de-toxed archaeologist was fast asleep, remedied the situation by a swift kick.

Daniel sat up with a snort.

Hammond frowned. Had Dr. Jackson just fallen asleep? He shook his head slightly then looked at Jack. The colonel was apparently finding the table top very interesting. Hammond's 'Jack alert' went off. He was up to something. The general glanced at Daniel, who was blinking his eyes in an effort to bring himself fully back to consciousness. 'Definitely up to something.' "Colonel."

Jack looked up, enquiringly.

"You have a go."

"Yes, sir." Jack practically leapt from his seat. 'That was a close one.'

~*~

Daniel managed to stay awake all the way through the mission to check out P4R-981 but he was practically sleep walking by the time they got back to the SGC. Jack was scowling. He'd hoped Daniel would be more awake by now.

Daniel headed straight for his office and automatically poured himself a cup of coffee. He went to take a gulp then stopped. Why did he bother? This stuff wasn't helping him stay awake at all.

Maybe he was hungry. Lack of food....

'Lack of food. Jack.' Daniel frowned. Now that the memory had surfaced, he was convinced that Jack had been about to say something else. 'Lack of caf....' The light bulb went on with ping.

"Caffeine!"

Daniel leapt at his cupboard and wrenched the door open with adrenalin pumping through him. It gave him more energy than he'd had in days. Quickly, he rifled through the bags. Jack was good but they didn't stand up to a minute inspection, and Dr. Daniel Jackson had been examining artifacts very closely for quite a number of years.

'Good, but not quite good enough, Jack.'

Daniel thought rapidly. Obviously Jack had got the messhall in on the act.... 'Janet too.' So he couldn't get any real coffee from there. Briefly, he thought of Sam's lab. She'd always had some coffee ready for when she'd pull an all nighter, she hated the coffee machine coffee, so did he. His eyes widened. With a barely restrained whoop of triumph, he grabbed some spare change and dived into the hallway. Fortunately, there was no one around as he ran to the coffee machine and, with shaking hands, shoved some money in and hastily grabbed the nectar his body had been craving.

Furtively, he ducked back into his office. 'Coffee, real coffee.' He smirked, 'Nope, not quite good enough, Jack,' and took a drink. Then peered into the cup.

"Damn!" Jack was more sneaky than Daniel had thought.

Two hours of sneaking around the base and several close shaves later, Daniel had proved that Jack had been extremely thorough and that everyone on the base was obviously drinking decaf coffee. In his desperation, he'd even snuck into the General's office and whipped some of his coffee only to throw it down in disgust as the lack of caffeine made itself apparent.

Well recognised footsteps in the hall made him dump the liquid into his mug, the cup into the waste paper bin and himself into his chair. By the time the door opened, Dr. Daniel Jackson, PhD. was engrossed in decoding the latest set of squiggles an SG team had decided they needed translating.

"Hey, Daniel."

"Hey, Jack."

"I've been lookin' for you for ages."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." Jack paused. Was there something going on? "Here, the messhall, the Infirmary, the lab.... No sign of you."

"I was wandering around."

"Oh yeah? Where'd ya go?"

'He suspects something.' "Down to storage. You see," Daniel decided to bamboozle Jack with words - it had worked every other time, "these symbols seem to be a mix between Mayan, Aztec, Cuniform and Ancient Egyptian. I remembered that we had an artifact come in a few months ago that was very similar but without any symbols. It was an Aztec design but had the image of Bastet on it, proving once again, that there was a cross fertilization of all the cultures springing from the Goa'uld inspiring all the ancient legends about Gods. Anyway, I thought that...."

"Yeah," Jack interruped loudly. 'He went to look at a damn rock. Makes sense.' "So, me and Teal'c are gonna visit Sam then head to my place to watch the game. You comin'?"

Daniel looked up, as though he'd become engrossed in his translating again. "Huh? Oh, the game. No thanks, Jack, there's a documentary on the Discovery Channel about Sneferu. Did you know he tried to replace the ancient Gods with his own religion? I'm wondering if he was a Tok'Ra or if he just figured that he'd be better off controlling more of the religion without letting the other Goa'uld in on it. Although, as he was actually from a later Dynasty than all the Goa'uld we've come across, it is possible that he realised that the ancient Gods were false...."

"Okay! Enjoy the documentary on See-through." A long dead, weirdly named guy over ice hockey? Jack shook his head.

"I will, Jack. I'll just finish this then go visit Sam myself before heading home."

"Okay. See ya tomorrow."

"See you then, Jack."

Daniel smiled as the door shut behind Jack. He didn't just have the translation to finish. He had some revenge to plan as well. He looked down at the inviting liquid in his cup. 'How did Jack persuade everyone to switch to decaf?' He aimlessly twirled the liquid around in his cup, thinking... thinking....

Unless....

He sat up straight. Was it possible that the only real coffee available was in the messhall... hidden? 'I wouldn't put it past him.' Daniel considered sneaking into the messhall and taking a look at their supplies but he figured that he'd probably get caught and then Jack would know he was onto him. Suddenly he smiled and looked at his computer. Oh, how he loved the Airforce. They kept records for everything.

As he had a high grade of clearance, he had no problem logging into the supplies records. And there it was. Two sets of coffee. The normal coffee drunk by everyone, and a new file, labelled "Coffee for Doctor Jackson and everywhere on the base where he might get his hands on it". He tried to access the file, but even his clearance couldn't get him in there. Obviously Jack had slammed his own personal clearance or higher on it.

Didn't matter. Now that Daniel knew the truth, he could work around it. 'You are so going to regret messing with me, Colonel O'Neill.'

~*~

"Hey, Janet."

"Hey, Daniel. You look a lot better than you did."

"Yeah, thanks." Daniel nodded, keeping his face carefully blank. "I feel a lot better too."

"Good." The Doctor smiled at him. She hadn't been sure that Daniel would be able to work without coffee. 'Obviously I was wrong.'

"Is Sam awake?"

"She was, she fell asleep after the colonel and Teal'c left."

"Oh, okay." Daniel approached Sam's bed silently and placed the chocolate cookies he brought for her on the bedside locker. "Sleep well, Sam."

~*~

On his way home, he stopped off at his favourite coffee shop. The owner greeted him with a big smile: Dr. Jackson was his best customer. Unfortunately, Jack had got there first.

As soon as he got home, Daniel raced into the kitchen and shoved the kettle on the stove. He hopped from one foot to the other impatiently as he waited for it to boil. Then, finally, he made himself a glorious cup of rich, non-decaf coffee (he thought). Savouring the moment, he turned on the TV and watched as the Discovery Channel claimed that the pyramids had been built by ancient Egyptians, then he lifted the coffee cup and took a gulp.

'Coffee... What the....?' Daniel stared into the cup. "Decaf!" he shouted. He dumped the repulsive, fake and totally without delight coffee on the table then leapt to his feet, grabbed his car keys and ran from the apartment.

Muttering various curses, in several different languages, Daniel dived into his car and headed off with a squeal of tyres. He stopped at the first supermarket he came to and ran inside.

Grabbing a trolley, he rushed to the coffee aisle. Coffee... real coffee awaited him - but only because Jack didn't have the financial backing to bribe an entire supermarket chain. Daniel, suspecting more of Jack's handiwork, refused to take the bags sitting tidily at the front of the shelves, taking instead some from the back. Suddenly realising that he was being watched, he spun around (fully expecting to see Jack with a zat gun and a disapproving look on his face), only to find himself facing a little old lady.

She looked at the mess he'd made of the shelves, then reached past him to pick up a bag of coffee. He smiled endearingly, hoping to reassure her.

"Weirdo," she snapped, then walked away.

Ten minutes later he left, carrying several bags of coffee. He hadn't been able to get his normal brand of 'so strong the top of your head will fall off' coffee, instead he'd had to make do with normal strength. He hoped it would be enough.

Twenty minutes later, he was back in his living room, the Discovery Channel still making erroneous comments about Ancient Egypt, and a cup of real coffee facing him.

He picked up the cup, his hand trembling and took a gulp. As the caffeine rushed around his system, making his eyes spin like pin balls, he sank back on the couch, a smile on his face.

"Coffee...." he murmured, feeling the strength returning to his body along with the ability to work all night and not fall asleep in meetings. "Coffee...."

Five cups of coffee later, and he was back to normal. The bright, pain in the ass, too clever for his own good, Dr. Daniel Jackson was out for revenge.

~*~

The next morning, Daniel arrived early at the SGC. Hurrying to his office, he turned on his computer and waited as the computer loaded all of its programmes. As soon as it was ready, he went online and spent a very happy half an hour hacking into Jack's computer system. He knew that Jack rarely used his computer, in fact the only thing he used it for was to do paperwork. And, as it was the end of the month, all of Jack's monthly paperwork was sitting on his hard drive. Daniel smiled. Jack was not going to be a happy camper when it came time to hand over all of his reports. In fact, Jack might be missing a few games while he attempted to hand over all of his reports.

~*~

"Good morning, Dr. Jackson."

"Major Connor. It is a good morning, isn't it?" Daniel smiled at the beautiful woman as he collected his breakfast, refusing the coffee and choosing juice instead. He noticed how her eyes lingered on his tray. "No, Major, I've decided to give up on the SGC coffee. Caffeine is so addictive after all."

Mary Lou was surprised but tried to hide it, although a pleased look managed to make it into her eyes. "I hope you find that you can manage without it," she said, sincerely, although the gleam in his eyes puzzled her.

"Believe me, Major. I'm doing fine." Daniel kept his face straight until she'd turned and started making her way towards a table, then a huge grin spread across his face. "Just fine."

~*~

Jack sighed as he turned his computer on. He hated paperwork. Paperwork of any description. He figured that he'd sooner be out there facing up to Apophis than doing paperwork... well, almost anyway. He waited as the programmes loaded themselves and then clicked on documents, his mind more on last night's hockey game than anything else. He and Teal'c had had a bet on the outcome. Teal'c had, naturally, chosen the team whose members were bigger and bulkier. Jack had known that he would. Since speed is an important factor in hockey, Jack had not been surprised when he'd won the bet.

"I do not understand," Teal'c had said, flatly. "The team I chose should have been victorious."

"Well, Teal'c, sometimes bigger doesn't mean better."

Teal'c had merely looked at Jack, one eyebrow rising. Then he had straightened slightly. "I will remember that for next time."

'Yeah, like I'm gonna let you choose your team next time.'

Jack grinned. Teal'c had been annoyed, he could tell. He glanced at the screen and typed in his password. 'The sooner I get this finished the better.' His face dropped as the words "Access Denied" flashed at him.

"What the....?" He typed his password in again and received the same message. He tried once more, this time typing slowly to make sure that he got it right, then pushed his chair back. Had he changed his password? He knew he hadn't. He tried all of his passwords for the past month or so, (his latest ones being ice hockey teams) and then clapped his hands together when one was accepted.

"Yes! I'm in!"

After changing his password back to what he'd thought it was, Jack clicked on his documents again. His grin faded as he saw the list. Instead of being faced with a list of names such as "naquadah mission", "Norjil & co", etc., Jack was looking at a list of files he didn't recognise at all.

"'There's no way you're reading this one'? 'Doohickey'? What the hell is goin' on?"

Jack impatiently clicked on 'Doohickey'. The file opened. It was one of his mission reports to P7R 937. Glancing down his eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he realised that every name in the report showed up at 'Doohickey'. Reading that 'Major Doohickey' had drunk caffeine and become incapacitated, while 'Dr. Doohickey' and 'Doohi'ckey' hadn't, would certainly make Hammond's day (who was, of course, referred to as 'General Doohickey' in the report).

Jack clicked close. Then opened the file again, slowly. It was still there! Closing that file he opened the document that advised him that there was no way he'd read it. It was right.

Instead of words, it had numbers.

Jack sat back in his chair. This couldn't be happening. Suddenly he closed the document and opened up another one, this one called, 'Day at the Seaside'.

This one told the tale of how 'Major Shell Crab', 'Dr. Dab Jellyfish' and 'Turtle' had gone through the 'gate, the resulting mission ending with 'Major Crab' being badly injured.

Jack leapt to his feet. "You've gotta be kidding me!"

Hurriedly, he opened and then closed all of his mission reports. Each had been tampered with in some way.

Jack pushed his chair away from the desk and away from the list of mission reports that mocked him. He grabbed his hair and held onto his head. He hated writing mission reports, he hated paperwork and now... he was faced with rewriting each and every single report!

He gave a muffled scream and then started pacing back and forth in front of his desk, checking every now and then to see if the reports were still bizarrely named. If only Sam wasn't asleep in the Infirmary - she'd know what had happened and how to fix it.

~*~

"Hey, Doc. How's the patient?"

"She's fine, Colonel. She's actually awake at the moment."

Jack smiled. 'Must be my lucky day.' "Hey, Carter, how ya feelin'?"

Carter smiled up at him. The flu had cleared, so she was feeling a lot better. Her bronchitis was on the way to being banished, her measles were still itching and her shingles were still painful, but all in all, she was feeling much more like her old self.

"Colonel, it's good to see you." Suddenly, Sam frowned. She could tell there was something wrong. "What's up?"

Jack looked over his shoulder at Janet, who was still scribbling notes on a clipboard.

Sam's eyes followed his, and noticed how he didn't speak until the Doctor had left the room.

"Colonel?"

"You're not supposed to be workin', but I need some help."

Sam smiled. "I've been so bored it's incredible. Just give me something to think about."

"My computer."

"What about it?"

"Somethin' weird's happened. All my documents are called somethin' different and... and...names are changed in each report."

"Names?"

"Major Doohickey."

"Doohickey?" Sam echoed.

"Yeah. That's not all. One o' them's now called 'The Universe and Back' and everyone's named after a damn planet!"

"A planet?"

"Yeah, I've got mission reports filled with fish, animals and flowers, for cryin' out loud. Some o' them, I can't even read! One's filled with smileys and another's a pile o' numbers!"

"Oh my."

"Did I get a virus or what?" Jack demanded.

"Is that it? All the names have been changed?"

"Yeah. Oh, an' my password was different."

"Your password? Are you sure?"

Jack nodded. "Positive."

"That's not a virus, that's a hacker."

Jack looked at her blankly.

"Someone's hacked into your computer and changed everything. The only question is who?"

Jack knew. He didn't know how but he knew who and why. "Daniel."

"Sir?"

"Dr. Dab Jellyfish himself."

"Sir, I don't...."

"Daniel did it."

"Why would Daniel...."

"Because I switched his coffee to decaf."

"Holy Hannah!"

"And this is his revenge." Jack's face hardened. "He is gonna be so sorry."

"Sir... sir...." Sam watched helplessly as Colonel Jack O'Neill, ex-Special Forces, left the Infirmary intent on a Jellyfish hunt. She wouldn't like to be in Daniel's shoes when the colonel caught up with him.