Priorities
It occurred to Sam that though she was as levelheaded as she had been since her duties at the SGC, it wasn't until the things she valued most were compromised did her real priorities — enshrouded by those nebulous frat regulations and the standard operating procedures that always seemed to be in control of her life — surface.
It hadn't been apparent then, but it definitely wasn't incredibly subtle when she was reunited with Daniel, Janet, and especially Teal'c after so long. And hell, it had gotten less and less subtle by the moment. Especially standing outside of Colonel — no, Jack's — Minnesotan cabin, her insides churning at the concept of seeing him again, and after so long . . .
And then demanding Joe to retrieve the GDO from the President's desk, her entire being tremulous, and her eyes wide and searching and pleading. But though her eyes were wide open, she didn't entirely see them; but her priorities were there, staring her right in the face, and a very small fraction of them had to do with Joe. Yes, for the nonce, she had been indignant of the Aschen's covert plans. And her anger was completely justified, especially since she and Joe — along with the ninety-one percent of those shown in the statistics — were personally involved. They'd been trying to have children for so long, and then Joe had known . . . He'd been misled, but he'd known nonetheless.
There was an incredible . . . building up of sorts between the time she and Joe had talked and when SG-1's final mission had ineluctably began. It had reached its peak when Joe demanded that Sam be extricated from the entire scheme, and although she'd squashed it down in the face of love and devotion and obligation for her husband, those things didn't add up enough.
Because in the end, as it always did, SG-1 came first.
It would have been revolutionary — hell, it still had been — if she'd acknowledged these priorities before. If they had been strengthened with this much intensity, this much loyalty years ago, when they had mattered most . . .
No, Sam realized as she raced down the escalator, the automated defense system's lasers seeking and piercing her, with the Stargate's glimmering wormhole at the forefront and Joe's desperate cries in the veritable distance, they still matter most, and they always have.
The last thing Sam thought as Jack's note sailed those few precious inches through the air and into the gate was that her past self would at least get the second chance she never would.
And her last hope was that that Sam would finally reconcile herself to those priorities; because no matter what those frat regs or those standard operating procedures commanded, it was those priorities — sunken under the surface, but they always managed to get buoyed up at the most imperative of times — that mattered most.
