Pete Thornton walked down the corridor to his best friend's office in the labyrinthine complex deep inside Cheyenne Mountain that was called Stargate Command, or SGC. It was still amazing to him that he could see again, and even more shocking was the fact that his best friend, MacGyver, was a Brigadier General who ran the base. Mac was full of surprises that surpassed all of his old ones. And the guns! The Mac Pete had known for over thirty years hated guns with a passion, but this new Mac used them daily and with lethal proficiency. It was shocking, but now that Pete knew about the enemy that Earth faced, he could see the reason that Mac would put aside his anti-gun feelings.

"Pete!" the familiar and welcome voice of Kate Lafferty assaulted him.

Pete smiled at the young woman. "Katey!" he said enthusiastically. He gave her a hug. He noticed the old look of mischief in her eyes. "What are you up to?" he asked.

Kate grinned. "I just placed a little bug in Mac's laptop," she revealed.

"A little bug?" Pete asked. He was well aware of Kate's computer prowess, and Mac's as well. It seemed that their longstanding friendship and games of one oneupmanship were proceeding at full speed.

"Yeah," she shrugged. "He hates Felger for some reason, so I rigged his laptop, which he has set up to run his phone system from his office, to ring Felger wherever the man is whenever Mac tries to call Sam. I have a micro-track on Felger so that the laptop knows which phone the man is near at all times."

"Felger! What the hell are you doing answering Carter's phone?! Get out of her lab!" came the very annoyed voice of their friend Mac/General O'Neill. A couple of moments silence ensued. "God dammit Felger! I thought I told you to get the hell out of Carter's lab. Now get off the damn line!" They heard the phone slam down.

"I'm glad you don't pull that stuff on me," Pete chuckled.

"You just haven't triggered the right things yet," Kate said slyly. The she hugged Pete again and sauntered off.

"Walter! Get Carter in here ASAP!" Mac bellowed from his office

"Troubles, Mac?" Pete asked as he walked into the office.

"Pete!" Mac/Jack said as he jumped up, delighted to see his old friend. "What are you doing here? No one mentioned anything to me about a visit."

"Call it a surprise visit," Pete said as he took a seat. "Can't an old man come see his best friend every now and then?"

"Anytime, Pete," Jack said fondly as he took his own seat. He grabbed his phone and punched the extension for Carter. He got a shocked look on his face when someone answered. "Get the hell of the line, Felger! If I pick up this phone and you're on it one more time you'll be spending your vacation at McMurdo!" he shouted as he slammed the receiver down.

"You really don't like this Felger, huh?" Pete asked curiously.

"Hell no," Jack replied. "The man screwed up the Gate system across the whole galaxy and Teal'c and I got to spend some time up close and personal with a monsoon. I almost got pneumonia. And Doc practiced her particular brand of needle torture inoculating me with everything imaginable afterwards."

"You still hate needles, huh?" Pete asked, clearly amused.

"More than ever," Jack sighed. "Where the hell's Carter?"

"You bellowed, Sir?" Sam asked with a smile as she walked into the office. She'd left her lab the instant that Walter had let her know that Jack was looking for her.

"Why the hell is Felger answering your phone?" Jack demanded.

"Sir?" Sam asked.

"Felger. Why is that brown nosing little twit answering your phone?" he reiterated.

"My phone hasn't been ringing," Sam said with definite concern.

"Carter, I called three times now and each time that ass has been answering," Jack said with as much patience as he could muster. He wanted to talk to his girlfriend, not some idiot who almost caused him to have pneumonia once.

"I've been in my lab for hours and my phone hasn't rang once, not even my cell phone," she told him. "Are you sure you passed your psych eval with MacKenzie last month?"

"As if that moron could tell if someone had a screw loose," Jack groused. Then he narrowed his eyes. Turning to his laptop he rapidly opened some programming files and started looking through his sophisticated phone programming. Three minutes later he had found what he was looking for. "Kate!" he hollered as loudly as he could.

The familiar laugh of Kate Lafferty entered the office as the woman in question walked in, apparently having been waiting around a corner for him to discover her little joke.

"Yes, Mac?" she asked. She tried, but failed, to keep a straight face.

"You are so gonna get it, you know," her friend told her.

"Didn't you like my little surprise?" she asked.

"Oh I loved it," Jack said sarcastically. "I want to talk to my favorite person in the whole universe and what do I get? Felger! That absolutely kills the mood, young lady."

"And what mood is that?" Kate teased.

Jack blushed a bit. "That's none of your business," he said indignantly. "Just you wait until I get back at everyone who has been playing those trickson me lately."

"In your dreams, Mac," Kate laughed. She looked down at Pete. "How about I show you my lab and we can visit for a bit. That way the grouch over their can spend some quality time with your girlfriend." She winked at Sam who blushed a bit, too, but winked back.

"She's good," Sam said as Kate and Pete left the office.

Jack smiled. "Too good," he admitted. "What happened to the days when I had the upper hand?"

"You got promoted," she told him as she gave him a peck on the cheek. That was the most she would allow herself in his office. She had some standards of propriety, after all.

"That adds Danny Boy to the list of those who deserve a little payback," Jack mimed making a note on his notepad. He smiled at her. "How about some lunch? We can discuss our payback plans and organize a little barbecue for Pete since he's here."

"Sounds good," she said with a smile. "You really are having fun with Kate being here, huh?"

Jack grinned widely. "What can I say? She makes my life in this purgatory of an office interesting," he responded. He took a chance and patted her on the butt. "Let's get to the commissary before they run out of cake. Maybe we can beat Ferretti there and steal the last piece again."

She hit his arm playfully. "Watch your hands," she reminded him with a laugh.

"I'll try, but with such a hot target, who could blame me?" he asked as they left the office together arm in arm.

"Oh by the way, I have some more equations I need you to look at," Walter heard her say as he rounded the corner to bring some papers to the General's office. "Carter!" came the plaintive reply as he heard the elevator close. He smiled. Life was sure interesting now that the General had revealed himself to everyone and he was in a relationship with Colonel Carter.