"Hey Jack, you ready?" Daniel called out as he let himself in Jack's front door.

"Yeah Daniel, give me a sec." O'Neill called out from the back of the house.

Daniel wandered into the living room and began his customary visual search of the room. His eyes came to rest on a small fish tank nestled in the book case. He didn't remember seeing it the last time he was at Jack's house. Of course, he had been slightly inebriated at the time….

He leaned down slightly to peer at the fish swimming happily around in the clear water.

"You ready?" Jack emerged from the hallway, rolling up his sleeves.

"When did you get the fish?" Daniel motioned towards the tank.

"Couple of months ago, I guess." Jack shrugged and walked over to the tank. He picked up the fish food off the shelf and carefully placed a pinch of food into the water.

"Hey, Teal'c leave some for the others" Jack groused as the goldfish began to nip the other two in his enthusiasm for the food.

Daniel straightened and turned to look at Jack, his eyebrows arching upwards.

"Teal'c?"

"....Yes…."

"O..kay"

Jack sighed and rolled his eyes. "Well, look at him! He's a black goldfish with gold flecks and a bubbly tattoo looking thing on his head. I couldn't not name him Teal'c."

Danielsimply stared at Jack,his expression blank.

"That really big one back there is Jack," He smiled proudly "and that one there with the pretty swishy tail is Carter – Ah!" He held up a finger to silence Daniel. "Not a word."

Jack then pointed to a large snail that was slowly making its way along the bottom of the tank. "That's General Hammond."

"You named your snail General Hammond? Ok…I'll bite…why?"

"Well, you see the snail doesn't swim around and play like the goldfish do. He just sits quietly and watches over the other fish." Jack suddenly frowned. "Although I guess that sounds more like me, now that I'm in charge" he said almost sadly.

"Jack?" Daniel began, struggling to keep the hurt out of his voice. "Why don't I have a fish?"

Jack had the decency to look a bit ashamed.

"Yeah…uh…you ascended…"

Daniel's forehead crinkled in confusion. "Um…hello?" he waved his hand in the air around himself indicating he was back among the land of the living.

"Look, I know Daniel, I just haven't had time to go back to the fish store. Just be grateful I didn't replace you with Jonas!" Jack smirked as Daniel's mouth dropped open.

"Come on, let's go." He picked up his jacket and moved towards the door.

As Daniel was getting ready to follow Jack out, movement in the tank caused him to look back.

"What. the hell. is that?" Daniel pointed towards a sucker fish that swooped down out of the shadows barely missing 'Carter' and attached itself to the front of the tank. Its wide round mouth was sucking frantically at the algae that had collected on the glass.

Jack turned and looked over his shoulder at Daniel who had crinkled his nose in disgust.

"Oh, that's Pete." He said mildly and walked out the door.

The End. :-)