Ferretti waited patiently, leaning against the DHD. The odds were fifty-fifty Rock Doc would be late. The man had a tendency to lose track of time, had been like that for as long as he’d known him. However, knowing that there was a temple…an Ancient temple at that, would motivate the scholar. Ferretti had never known anyone to get so excited over a bunch of old rocks. But then there weren’t many people like Daniel Jackson. The major was of two minds of whether that was a good or bad thing. The man could be a right pain in the ass. He was so passionate about everything, from his beliefs to his work. And talk about stubborn! Man, a fuckin’ mule has nothing on Rock Doc. When he dug his heels in that was it. Which was great, as long as you were on his side. Daniel didn’t blink twice about going head to head with a Goa’uld; was a Grand Master at baiting the snakeheads. But quite often Jackson was opposed to the military nature of the SGC. He’d fought as many bureaucrats as psycho aliens and damn if he hadn’t won more than he lost. Whether friend or foe, verbal or physical, he would stand and fight. And much to his friends' dismay, had balls of steel. That man was afraid of nothing, at least not that Ferretti had seen. Right from that first mission to Abydos he’d shown surprise and wonder and friggin’ wide eyed curiosity, but not once had there been an ounce of fear.

Admittedly Ferretti hadn’t thought much of the linguist the first time he’d laid eyes on him. ‘Stuttering dweeb’ was the first thing that came to mind. Then he’d read his background sheet while preparing to step through the Stargate. He’d never tell another living soul, but after seeing his credentials, the skinny man with constant travel allergies and wide eyes peeking out from beneath his floppy hair and glasses had intimidated the military officer. He was so fuckin’ smart, a genius. Ferretti hadn’t understood half the words that tumbled from his mouth and that was in normal conversation. It was why he’d treated Daniel like shit on that first mission. When the colonel had asked Jackson if he could get them home and the guy had said those two little words, "I can’t," fear had twisted in Ferretti’s gut. If the genius couldn’t work out how to get them back to Earth, what chance did a military grunt like himself have to decipher the riddle of the Stargate? Yet Jackson had come through for them, not only working out the essential seventh symbol, but saving their sorry asses from Ra. The ‘dweeb’ had earned the loyalty and respect of everyone on that team and Ferretti was proud to call him a friend.

Of course since then, Rock Doc had become like a kid brother to a lot of people on base. He’d worked damned hard to become an asset when things went to hell and had proven himself under fire time and time again. Ferretti had no qualms about Jackson watching his six, yet he still had the impulsive urge to protect him. Much to Jackson’s irritation, everyone felt that way. They’d seen how Sha’re’s abduction and death ate away at him. Those blue eyes that had been so wonderfully innocent, tinged constantly with grief and guilt. When Daniel had died, Ferretti had gone out on a week long bender. When he had miraculously been returned to them, he had lost another week to the bottle, this time celebratory. No one could have been happier than he, when he heard that Jackson had met that little redhead. Rock Doc has been through so much shit that he deserves a little bit of joy…no, he deserves a huge hunk of prime real estate in Happyville.

Rock Doc’s love for Annika was magical. Not a word that normally passed the major’s lips, but there was no other way to describe it. And it was abundantly clear that Annika loved him just as much. He reassessed those odds, seventy-thirty that Daniel would be late. If he had a woman like Annika at home, Ferretti would be late too. He’d caught an eye full of her body when she’d astral traveled to the general in her very sexy underwear. Not that Annika was the stay at home type. He couldn’t quite picture her meekly waiting at the door with slippers and dinner on the table. Domestic definitely was not one of the adjectives he’d use to describe her. Although he had heard that she was a mean cook.

He’d liked her from the word go. Ferretti had first seen Annika when Daniel had been showing her around the base. He’d been walking towards them, not realizing who she was and had been admiring her voluptuous body. If he’d bothered to look above her impressive cleavage, he would have seen the smitten expressions on both her and Jackson’s faces. He’d given an appreciative wolf whistle as he passed. The noise had made those violet eyes focus on him…well, not precisely. She’d actually looked above his head. With a slight frown she’d called him back. "Hey, Major…er…Whistler…when you see the cats, duck."

The cryptic comment had made him raise an eyebrow, but he was almost late for his pre-mission briefing and hadn’t stopped. He was convinced that Jackson, being the kind soul that he was, was escorting some nut job patient from off-world. That is until his team was trekking through an alien jungle a day later and came face to face with a totem pole decorated with crude depictions of what looked like a lion, tiger and panther. Instinctively he’d hit the ground, just as a staff blast hit the totem at what had been Ferretti’s chest height. It was an ambush and without Annika’s little suggestion Ferretti and probably his whole team would be pushing up daisies.

There was a familiar low grinding noise and Ferretti crouched behind a fallen log when the Stargate started to spin. He’d never assume that whoever was coming through would be friendly. After the wormhole ka-whooshed, his radio crackled to life.

"Ferretti, we’re coming through."

He recognized the archaeologist’s voice and relaxed, slipping the safety back on his P-90. "Roger that." By the time he came out of ‘hiding’ two figures had stepped through the ’gate. Ferretti smirked. Shoulda’ known they’d both come. He hadn’t calculated that into his odds. "Hiya, Daniel, Annika."

They waved and Daniel spoke into his radio letting the base know they’d made it through okay.

"Hey, Whistler," Annika smiled. Her gaze eagerly scanned the alien planet, though she waited by Daniel’s side until he signed off.

He couldn’t help but grin at the excitement in her eyes and…yep, there it was…that eternally curious glint that was the spitting image of her fiancé. Those two were very different, and at the same time peas in a pod. When he saw them both emerge he harbored the notion that Annika would be able to bring Daniel out of the ‘zone’ he’d slip into the moment he entered the temple. Now he had his doubts. If he weren’t careful both of them would forget the real world and lose themselves in the ancient writings, forgetting that their bodies needed sleep and food.

"So tell us about the temple." Daniel strode down the steps.

Ferretti gestured the direction and they headed out. "It’s about one klick from here. I’m no expert but the snake writing is really shoddy. They did a real half-assed job."

The major didn’t know if Annika realized it or not, but the two men had automatically flanked her, keeping the least experienced member protected. With a start he realized that it had been the archaeologist who had arranged the formation and while the scholar’s eyes were sparkling with eagerness, they were also scouting the terrain.

"Anything else on the planet to indicate Ancient civilization?"

"Not that we’ve seen. But even the UAV didn’t pick up the temple the first time round."

"This temple hiding, is it a common thing for the Ancients to do?" Annika asked.

Daniel shrugged. "Depends on the temple, what its purpose was. Generally the harder it is to find the more…complex, the reason for hiding it."

"Complex?" Annika found his phrasing odd.

"Well, the Ancients didn’t think like we do. Even with all the texts we have found, with and near Ancient artifacts, we rarely find the reason why they thought it prudent to leave devices on par with weapons out in the open and yet went to great lengths to hide knowledge and mundane things about daily life. At first I thought it was only to keep certain knowledge from the Goa’uld. But now I’m not so sure. Most of the knowledge we’ve gotten has been from passing some sort of test to gain access."

"Wait up," Ferretti interrupted. "I don’t recall Colonel O’Neill doing a test when that groping hand made him go Ancient."

"Of course it was a test," Daniel contradicted.

"It was?" the major frowned.

Daniel got that expression that was so familiar to the military man. Blue eyes widened in bewilderment, like it was a surprise to him that Ferretti didn’t understand. That was something else the major liked about Rock Doc. Unlike other academics on base, namely the whiny Doctor McKay, Daniel never made Ferretti feel like an idiot for not keeping pace with his sprinting mind. He just backtracked, rewording and explaining until his audience grasped the point and continued on.

"When he looked into the device it recognized he wasn’t Goa’uld or Jaffa. It’s really quite ingenious in its simplicity. A biological test, no way to cheat it." He pushed his glasses up his nose. "We’ve had to earn access to everything significant. They weren’t only trying to stop the Goa’uld, they were trying to stop anyone from getting their secrets."

"You mean like the Asgard did on Cimmeria? Annika asked.

"No, the Asgard didn’t want to disrupt their belief system until the Cimmerians were of the technical age to understand. The Ancients didn’t care about that. I think it was more arrogance."

"But when Jack had the knowledge downloaded…"

He cut her off, knowing what she was going to say. "The only reason Jack survived was because he worked out that the Asgard could help him get rid of it. Something that surprised the Asgard themselves. For anyone else they probably would have died or be locked up in a mental institution."

They walked a few minutes in silence, then Annika sighed.

"I’ve never considered the Ancients arrogant before."

"Oh, they were. Like the Tollans, they didn’t think the Goa’uld could defeat them, but they did with remarkable ease. They used the Ancient’s own technology against them. And look at all the havoc their abandoned devices have caused. I can’t believe that such an advanced and enlightened race could leave such potential hazards for anyone to stumble across. I think they just never considered that anyone else could make them work again."

Annika heard the need in his voice to believe that. It was a quality she loved about her fiancé. The wonderful need to believe that essentially everyone, other than the Goa’uld that is, had a fundamental sense of morality, of goodness.

When the cave came into sight, Daniel ignored the camp set up about twenty feet away, although he did wave at Brooklyn who was keeping watch. He headed straight for the entrance. He pulled out his flashlight, the beam spotlighting the walls as soon as he stepped inside. Annika and Ferretti were a few paces behind.

Annika could almost see his shiver of delight at the wall-to-wall glyphs before him, and couldn’t help her own ripple of enthusiasm from shooting through their bond. "Where’s Nyan?" She was training her own light on the golden walls, surprised that the archaeologist wasn’t there. She let her pack slip from her shoulders.

"With Dodger, continuing on with the original recon mission," Ferretti answered. "I figured that since Rock Doc was coming anyway, he should get more experience at the physical aspects of a mission. They should be back at camp by 1900."

"He working out okay?" Annika asked.

The off-world refugee from Bedrosia had only been on active duty for a couple of months, although he had seen quite bit of action in the five years he’d been one of Daniel’s research assistants at the SGC. When SG-2’s team anthropologist requested desk duty because his wife was pregnant, Nyan had applied for the position. He’d loved his job on base, but the more he learned of the numerous worlds, the more he wanted to experience them himself. Ferretti had been willing to give the guy a chance. After all, as Rock Doc had proven, shy scholars could be a force to be reckoned with.

"Still green around the ears." The team leader shrugged. "But he’s already managed to talk us out of a couple hairy situations."

"This is fascinating." Daniel had dumped his own gear and strode across the stone floor. Almost absently his hand brushed over the golden altar in the center of the room as he passed.

"Military fascinating?" Ferretti enquired. What the Doc found fascinating and what he found fascinating were at complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

"Not a bit." The archaeologist was already translating the glyphs. "It starts off…The sun rose on the first day of the fertile season and the people rejoiced, for they had feared they would not survive to see the turning of the new cycle…"

"They were celebrating the equivalent of spring?" Annika was circling the room. The intricate carvings of the altar legs drew her attention.

"Sounds like it." Daniel was moving to the next set of glyphs. "Ferretti, can you give me a bit more light?"

"Sure, Doc." Ferretti started to pull out his own flashlight.

Annika outlined a leaf design, marveling that the artist had taken the time to include individual veins.

There was a low hum and the walls were suddenly lit up by hidden lights.

The three of them exchanged glances.

"Thanks, Ferretti." Daniel gave a lopsided grin.

"That didn’t happen before." The officer’s eyes were wide. "And we touched everything in here…" His voice trailed off.

"You did?" Daniel blinked at him.

"Yeah," he admitted. "Just don’t tell Colonel O’Neill. He’s got a thing about not touching anything."

"Gee, ya’ don’t say?" The sarcastic quip flew from the archaeologist’s lips in such a perfect imitation of his CO that they all burst into laughter.

"We’re getting used to mysterious lights," Annika chuckled.

"Happen often, does it?"

"Often enough that it’s not a surprise. Still working on the why though." Then Daniel was once again caught up in the ancient words.

Annika rummaged around in her pack and pulled out the camcorder. She began filming the walls.

"I’ll leave you two to it then." Ferretti began edging out of temple. My work is done.

"Uh huh."

The dual response from the couple made him grin. He’d lost them both to the squiggles. Neither one noticed when he left.

After Annika captured every glyph on film, she settled next to the wall Daniel was working on and slowly began translating the Goa’uld glyphs. They had already decided that Annika would work on the ‘graffiti’, while Daniel would translate the more complicated Ancient dialect. She felt a delighted tickle beneath her heart and she glanced over at the man she loved.

Blue eyes peeked over his glasses at her. "If you get stuck on anything, let me know."

She smiled at him, giving a nod. "Will do."

They worked together in companionable silence.

Working by Daniel’s side, Annika became distracted by a soft tingly sensation. It felt almost like a caress. She gave her head a shake to clear it and refocused on the wall. A few minutes later it was back. She recognized it for what it was. The Gods knew it had been her constant companion since meeting Daniel. Desire, pure and simple. Usually it was something she could control, at least when they were working. However, since stepping into the temple she’d been excited. She’d originally put it down to the joy of the job, being off-world was still an exhilarating experience for her. Now she wasn’t so sure. "Daniel, do you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

She concentrated on the emotion and sent it through their bond.

His eyes crinkled with mirth. "I live in a perpetual state of arousal whenever you’re around."

"I know that," she giggled. "But doesn’t it feel different here?"

Daniel considered the question. "I’m more aware of it, but it’s not different." He flashed that shy smile of his. "Why? Are you complaining?"

"Noooo," she drew out the word. "It’s just a bit inconvenient at the moment. We’ve got work to do."

To the amusement of her lover she took two long strides across the room away from him. "Did that help any?"

"Not one damned iota. Do you have to look so friggin’ sexy in those BDUs?" she groused.

"I’m sorry." Daniel sounded anything but contrite. He sent the desire he too was feeling back to her. "We’ll play later," he promised.

"I’ll hold you to that." She turned back to the Goa’uld glyphs, doing her best to ignore her raging hormones.

Ferretti and Brooklyn popped their heads in regularly, keeping them supplied with coffee and a couple of MREs.

After four hours, Brooklyn frowned when he realized that Daniel hadn’t moved position between the first check in and the last. The captain, known in the civilian world as Doyle Lyndermann, had been given the call sign Brooklyn. Originally the stocky man had simply been called ‘Lyn’, an abbreviation of his surname. However ‘Brook’ had been added after an unfortunate incident involving a swarm of bees, and the brook into which he dove headfirst to escape the rampaging insects, knocking himself out in the shallow water. He didn’t know much about translating temples, explosives were more his specialty, but even he knew this translation was taking longer than usual. "Is something wrong?" he asked. "Are you having trouble working it out?"

"No." Daniel accepted his next boost of caffeine without looking up. "Thanks. Why?"

"You seemed glued to the floor."

"It’s just more compact than what we’ve encountered before. It seems whoever inscribed this was a bit of a…um…"

"Windbag?" Annika supplied from the other side of the room. There was a lot less Goa’uld script and she had moved on to the next wall.

Daniel nodded in agreement. "He or she is waffling on. If I’m lucky I’ll have half of it translated today."

"Happy reading!" Brooklyn once again left them to it.

"Uh huh."

A  A  A  A  A  A

Annika was trying to work out one particular glyph that was giving her trouble. Ferretti had been right, the snakeheads had not been careful when they added their self-serving propaganda and many of the words were almost unintelligible. She glanced over at Daniel who was totally engrossed in the opposite wall. Not wanting to disturb him for the sake of one word, Annika headed over to their packs looking for the Goa’uld-English dictionary he had created for her. As she flicked through the pages, comparing the symbols, a nagging image kept drifting across her mind. Quietly she left the temple in search of Ferretti.

He and his men were gathered around a small campfire eating their evening meal of MREs. A pot of water was boiling over the flames and Brooklyn was ripping open packets of instant coffee.

"Can I grab one of those?" she asked as she approached. It was coffee in the loosest sense of the word, but even the bad coffee from their ration packs was better than no coffee at all.

The burly captain reached for another cup. "Knew the lure of another dose of coffee would bring one of you out."

Annika sipped the black beverage he handed to her and grimaced. "It’s an insult to the coffee trees of the world that this is labeled coffee."

"Yep, the military has a wonderful knack of eliminating a simple thing like taste." He rifled through the packs. "Do you want something to eat? We’ve got beef stew that tastes like chicken and chicken that tastes like…" He frowned unable to think of a comparison.

"Like something best left unnamed," Dodger finished, stubbing out a smoke, a wide smile spreading across his face revealing a set of perfect white teeth. He was the only smoker of the group and his teammates had given up trying to make him quit after one disastrous attempt a few years back. They had survived one three day mission where he had gone cold turkey. The man had been grumpier than a pissed off Goa’uld the entire time and for the sanity of the whole team, Ferretti had ‘ordered’ him to maintain his addiction. Officially named Aloysius Richards, though no one except his mother ever dared used his Christian name, the captain had boyish good looks that would have made him ideal model material, except for the inch long scar that marred his temple. He’d been tagged Dodger, not because he could dodge bullets under fire, but because of his ability to evade the numerous advances of the female personnel on base.

"Think I’ll pass," Annika grinned.

"How’s the translating going?" Nyan asked, tearing open a packet of peanut butter M&Ms. He’d developed quite an addiction for the confection since his arrival on Earth.

"Slowly."

"Sorry I can’t help out on this one." He looked contrite. "I only know the bare basics of Ancient."

Annika waved his concerns away. "Daniel is in his element and it’s giving me the chance to see just how much Goa’uld my brain has retained." She turned to Ferretti addressing the reason she came out of the temple. "Whistler, didn’t you say there was no sign of recent human life around here?"

The major nodded. "We found no trace. The only tracks we found were of those walking steaks near the Stargate."

"We figured the fields around are a grazing ground for them," Brooklyn added in between a mouthful of food.

"You might want to reassess that." The psychic tapped her head. "I’ve got the feeling that this planet is visited quite regularly."

The men were immediately alert.

"Goa’uld?" Dodger asked.

"No." She shook her head. "I’m tempted to say traders…but that doesn’t sound right." She took another sip of coffee, trying to think of the right word. "I keep getting the image of Blackbeard."

"As in the pirate?" Brooklyn’s eyebrows shot up.

Annika nodded.

"Thanks for the heads up." Ferretti tilted his head in question. "Think they’ll be making an appearance soon?" He didn’t understand precisely how her visions worked, but he knew enough that anything she saw was taken seriously, and that the right question could prompt further information that she didn’t even know she had.

The psychic shrugged. "I have no idea."

The four men bit back grins. That phrase was a familiar one, most often spouted from her fiancé’s lips.

"We’ll keep our eyes open," the team leader promised.

She smiled and handed back the now empty cup. As she headed back to the temple Ferretti fell into step with her.

"Any idea how long Rock Doc will be before calling it a night?"

"You know Daniel." Her shoulders lifted up and down concomitantly. "Time means nothing to him when he’s translating."

"Jack will tear me a new one if he collapses from exhaustion when we get back." The major kept his voice low. "Can’t you use your imagination to get him to sleep a little?"

"I guess I could use my telekinesis," Annika joked. "But I don’t fancy having a grumpy archaeologist in my tent. You could try ordering him out."

Ferretti just raised an eyebrow and Annika grinned.

"You’re right, what was I thinking?"

The two were quiet for a moment.

Ferretti really didn’t want to drag the archaeologist out of the temple. Jackson could swear in over two dozen languages and Ferretti hated not understanding an insult. He’d much prefer a happy Rock Doc to a grumbling one.

Annika could only come up with one solution that would willingly draw her fiancé away from the walls. Plus as an added bonus it would alleviate her own ‘problem’ she’d been denying since entering the temple. "Um…Whistler, can you give me a couple of hours? I should be able to convince Daniel to call it a night by then." She was eternally grateful for the darkening twilight. It hid the blush that stained her cheeks.

"Sure," the major nodded. "But just remember that we have tranquilizer darts."

"I’ll consider that fair warning." With a shy smile Annika headed back to the temple.

He watched the soft sway of her hips until she disappeared into the shadow of the entrance. He’d caught her blush and had a pretty good idea of what the redhead had planned. It wasn’t exactly SOP, but then neither Daniel nor Annika were known for following the rules. Give them a ‘problem’ and they were guaranteed to find the most unusual, non-military solution. Well, as long as it got the job done, who am I to object? And he doubted that Daniel would complain about Annika’s methods. He gave his head a little shake. Hot damn, Doctor Jackson is one lucky fella.

He returned to his men and organized the watch for the night. Ferretti drew first shift and he took up position on the outskirts between the temple and the tents. With Annika’s warning fresh in his mind he kept his eyes peeled on the surrounding darkness. As Annika’s time limit drew closer he glanced over at the temple. He hadn’t heard a peep from within since she’d returned. He reassessed his guess about how the psychic was going to get the archaeologist to rest. Maybe she was only going to help Daniel finish translating the wall he was working on. Two hours was a long time for a nookie, especially on a cold stone floor. Ferretti wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she’d gotten wrapped up in the ancient script herself. He’d give them a few more minutes and then haul them out to their tent.