Part the Third
In which Carter and Teal’c are complete absent, Daniel is unfortunately “dead”, Jack learns a thing or two about Kelowanan courtship, and a chance remarks comes back to bite Jonas in the ass.
AN: I still hate Jonas. I want that made perfectly clear.
When I wrote “Let Them Eat Cake”, someone suggested that I write a series of Jonas meets Culture stories. I planned on never doing it. And here we are.
Spoilers: Minor for Forsaken.
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Jack had made it one of his goals to get Jonas Quinn off of the Weather Channel. This was because most of Jack’s jokes were dependent upon his listener’s knowledge of popular culture, and he was getting tired of the blank stare followed by an explanation for Carter. To that end, he had arranged for a series of “technical difficulties” which prevented the Kelowanan from getting cable in his quarters, and if Jonas noticed that Jack was always on hand with a selection of videos whenever such outages occurred, he said nothing.
So it was that Jonas began his education on the finer points of living on the planet he now called home. As the weeks progressed, he abandoned the Weather Channel altogether, instead devoting his time to the likes of Spielberg, Stone and Cameron. After about two months, Carter had decided that his education was too one sided and, over Jack’s vehement protestations, began adding British comedy, musicals, and movies made before the 1950s.
Eventually, it got to the point where the people who worked in Blockbuster got to know Jack by name and became comfortable enough around him to joke at his apparent lack of social life. Jack, never one to take things like that lying down, had told the overenthusiastic salespeople, not completely untruthfully, that the movies were for a friend who couldn’t get out much. Since Jack possessed some unique ability which allowed to him to sound like he was fabricating, even when he was telling the truth, all he got in return was the patronizing glance he used to give Daniel when he was talking about the importance of some stone or other.
The next day, instead of writing his official report about SG-1’s trip to PX4-812, Jack had spent most of his time badgering Hammond about getting Jonas leave to go off base for non-mission related business. Hammond, more or less to shut him up, had promised to pull every string he could.
Taking Jonas to the video store was one of the more trying experiences of Jack’s life. Jonas wandered up and down the aisles for more than an hour, so overwhelmed by the choices available that he was unable to make one. Almost all of the people in the store had been subjected to a lengthy interrogation on their favourite movie genre and what was the best film available to be rented. At one point, a young man caught Jack’s eye, and the Colonel could see that the man now understood why Jack usually came alone.
Finally, Jonas approached the register with his selection in hand. Jack refrained from making his annoyingly habitual sarcastic comment about having enough time to make life altering decisions, because Jonas had an equally annoying habit of missing sarcasm, and Jack wasn’t emotionally prepared to spend any more time in the movie store. He paid for the movie without even checking the title. Jonas was being paid an Air Force salary now, and had arranged for a portion of each cheque to be deposited into Jack’s account when he realized how much renting movies cost.
Jack traditionally ran his stop watch to determine how much time passed between the start of the movie and Jonas’ first question. The time varied by movie, as did the number of questions. “Terminator” for example had been relatively uninterrupted, whereas it took almost a week to get through “Dude, Where’s My Car?”
Apparently, a grandfather reading a story to his sick grandson, who in turn would rather be playing video games made perfect sense to Jonas, because he said nothing. The blissful silence lasted until the hero was about to set off on his quest, leaving his true love at home on her farm.
“If she has a farm, why does he need a fortune?”
Jack paused the movie. It was one of the rules, or neither of them would ever have made it through “Mission Impossible”.
“Marriage between two people of different class was frowned on,” Jack began. He wondered absently who had died and made him Daniel before he remembered what happened next in the movie, and back pedaled a little. “Well, more for women. Women weren’t supposed to marry beneath themselves. It was a sign of weakness and sentimentality.”
“But her status wouldn’t change!”
“Well yes, it’s a stupid tradition. That’s probably why we don’t really do it anymore.”
“Oh,” Jonas paused and Jack was about to start the VCR when he began again, “That reminds me. One of the girls in the video store told me that the movie she is excited about isn’t on video yet. Apparently, you can go somewhere here in town, pay even more money, and see movies on a big screen.”
“Jonas, what do those two things have to do with each other?”
“Well,” he turned a little pink. “She said her boy-friend was taking her to see it tonight. I just wondered if movies had replaced fortune seeking.”
Jack muted the television. It was going to be one of those evenings.
“Don’t you people date?”
“Date what?”
“Each other! You know, boy meets girl, boy gets nervous, boy finally asks girl out, boy and girl go to movie? There’s a whole whack of customs and unwritten rules. It’s very stressful.”
“Rules?”
“When you can hold hands, when you’re allowed to kiss her, how long you should wait before you....get married.”
“That might be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”
Jack sighed. “So if you don’t date, how do you ....meet people?”
“When we’re old enough, we ask our parents to look around for us, and then we get married.” Jonas explained. “Our way sounds a great deal simpler, if you ask me. Every once in a while someone rebels, but for the most part we all get happy endings in the end.”
“Now that is ridiculous.” Jack said, reaching for the congealing popcorn. “Wait. Are you telling me that when that convict kissed you....”
“Yes.”
“So how did you know to never trust a girl who kisses on the first date?”
“Star Trek, Jack. The first alien is always lying. Especially if they try and kiss you.”
Jack couldn’t quite stop the grin that spread across his face as he reached for the remote.
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finis
AN: I made up a lot of stuff about Jonas here. And most of it is very, very wrong. Sorry!
Also, the movie is “Princess Bride”, which seems to make it into an unreasonable number of my fics, and the rule about pausing for questions was created for my mother, so she wouldn’t miss things when she said things like “Which one is Tom Cruise again?” and “Oh, so there isn’t a safe in that boat! It’s a decoy!”