Set just after Thor's Hammer (season 1)
"Spit it out."
Sam stopped chewing and looked up with her mouth full of M&Ms. She frowned up at Colonel O'Neill. He had just strolled into her lab uninvited and issued a rather strange order. He was staring at her with that annoyingly innocent look of his; the look she had learned really didn't mean he was innocent at all. The M&Ms were sitting in her mouth and starting to make her mouth water with every passing second. She was going to have to spit them out for real if she let them sit there any longer. Somehow she thought he must have meant something other than the candies when he'd told her to spit it out.
Sitting down across the table from her, he tapped his fingers on the table and studied his Captain carefully. It had been a day and a half since they had returned from Cimmeria. He hadn't known Captain Samantha Carter for very long, but he knew her well enough to realize that something was off. They had all returned to the SGC with mixed feelings. There were stirrings of hope, but also a crushing disappointment that it had been necessary to destroy Thor's Hammer. He could understand Daniel being off, which reminded him that he really needed to talk to him soon, but why was Carter upset? He asked, "What's up?"
"Nothing, sir." Sam said, after chomping her candies and swallowing quickly. "What do you mean?"
Jack shook his head, "Carter, it isn't polite to lie to a superior officer." He reached across the table and grabbed a handful of M&Ms from the king sized bag in front of her. "I'm sure it's against some reg. Anyway. Like I said, spit it out. Something's been eating you since we were on Cimmeria. Teal'c and I were a bit busy, I know. What happened between you and Daniel?"
"Sir?" Sam really didn't want to answer and wished that he wasn't so perceptive.
"Carter," Jack lowered his voice and said gently, "Talk to me. Look, Daniel didn't say anything, ok? He didn't throw you under the bus. He didn't have to; I can just tell somethings up with you." Jack doubted Daniel knew anything was wrong. The archaeologist was so wrapped up in excitement over discovering another culture and the possibility of a way to defeat the Goa'uld that whatever had happened between them was distant history to him. He studied Carter. She was avoiding his eyes and looking extremely uncomfortable. "Wanna know what I think?"
She didn't. Not at all, but how could she say that to him? It was probably against some reg. So she simply sighed.
He took it at as an invitation to continue. "I think that you were faced with an extremely challenging situation and you did the absolute best job I could ever have expected." Jack smiled slightly as her cheeks pinked up. "Your CO and a teammate disappeared in front of your eyes. You had to keep Daniel safe and survive in an alien environment. Just for trying to keep Daniel out of trouble you deserve a medal, Carter."
Sam smiled slightly, still having trouble finding any amusement in the situation.
"Seriously." Jack said, realizing she was still about as tense as he had been the day he'd learned to parachute. "Give."
"I don't think I handled things very well, sir." Sam said simply. She didn't want to say more, but she knew he was going to pursue this until he was satisfied.
"If there was a list of the people who could have handled things better, I'd be at the top of that list. What went on between you two?"
The words tumbled out of her mouth more quickly than she had expected. "I didn't believe him. How could I? He was so convinced that Kendra would be able to help us and I just didn't see it working out the way he wanted it to. I thought he was so wrapped up in his desperate hope of finding Sha're that he wasn't being reasonable. I wasn't very kind to him, sir."
Jack reached for more M&Ms to hide his smile. She didn't need to say more. It was exactly what he'd figured. She was beating herself up for no reason. Only because she was oversensitive when it came to Daniel. She could take the skin off any grizzled Airman or Marine if she needed to, and he doubted she'd done that to Daniel, but she was gonna need to get over this quick if they were going to be a success as a team. You couldn't be worrying about hurting feelings when you were dealing with life or death situations. Kawalsky had always sworn that, if a unit was going to survive its infancy, the most important quality for the team to have was a sense of humor. Forgiveness wasn't a bad second. You had to rely on one another's strengths, balance weaknesses, develop thick skins, and leave the bad stuff behind on the field. It was like a family; you could irritate the snot out of each other, but at the end of the day you had each other's backs. This team was never going to work if they didn't get that straight.
"Carter, don't take this the wrong way, but you have got to toughen up." As he had expected, her expression shifted. It shifted to the expression she had worn during most of their time on another alien planet. Simarka. Land of the Mongols and that really great blue dress. Jack refocused his thoughts quickly. The last guy she had stared down with that expression had ended his afternoon in the dirt after she'd bested him at hand to hand combat.
"Sir?" Her voice was winter. Ice and snow. Subzero temperatures.
He asked, "You've got a brother, right?" A tense nod; he was skating on thin ice. "Don't tell me you and he always got along perfectly. You fought like cats and dogs."
"I don't quite see your point." Sam said, feeling angry and confused. He just stared at her for the longest moment and then she felt ridiculous. Because she abruptly realized what his point was. The team was a close knit unit; like a family. And family members consistently stepped on one another's toes and drove each other crazy but it didn't mean the end of the world. She knew the Colonel was right. Maybe she hadn't handled things perfectly on Cimmeria, but Daniel had been acting normally toward her; if he'd been hurt by her lack of faith, he was already over it. She did need to toughen up; feelings were going to get hurt, jabs were going to fly, but they were a team and they couldn't let stuff like that bother them in the long term. Forgive and forget.
Jack grinned. The proverbial switch had been flipped; she was on the same page now. Carter was an astrophysicist which meant she was obviously astoundingly brilliant. He knew he would be forever grateful that she was also good old-fashioned, down to earth, common sense brilliant. She was going to be fine. Jack helped himself to the rest of the M&Ms and stood up. "Glad we had this conversation, Carter. And thanks for the M&Ms."
Sam considered him for a moment. She hadn't wanted to have the talk, but she did feel better now. The Colonel certainly had the gift of brevity when it came to resolving difficulties and conflicts. Finally, she smiled, "Thank you, sir. And you owe me a bag of M&Ms. King sized."