Summary: Contrary to popular belief, growing up as a military brat has its perks- and really, it helped shape the person Sam Carter was today.
Authors Note: Inspiration hit while I was getting ready to move to yet another new military base, so I had to write it down before I forgot. Reviews are love, flames will be used to toast marshmallows!
Warnings: Spoilers for everything I guess, and season four of Atlantis. Its nothing specific, just references. This is set post-continuum.
Disclaimer: 'Fraid I don't own Stargate SG-1, and I doubt I ever will. I do however own all ten seasons of it on DVD, a fact I am proud of!
Acknowledgements: No one, really. Its un-beta'd, so all mistakes are mine if you find any.
Dedication: To all the military brats out there, including myself :D Edit: And TCK's of course. Your review reminded me Jackson The Griffen-Breeder!
Theres Perks To Being A Military Brat.
Contrary to popular belief, growing up as a military brat has its perks. There was articles, upon articles about how it deprived children of a normal life, that it meant there was too much discipline in their lives, that the kids didn't know what life outside a military base was like..
But Sam loved it.
Her brother dreaded the day their father would be deployed somewhere, and they'd have to uproot and move again, leaving behind yet another batch of friends and 'uncles' and 'aunts' who weren't actually related to the Carters at all.
But Sam loved it.
She loved the excitement of moving to a new base, a new state, a new country. Sometimes she felt like an anthropologist, immersing herself in new cultures, making new friends, and learning new things.
One big perk for Sam growing up as a military brat was that she had seen so much of the world before she had turned fourteen. She had lived in Africa, Canada, South America, and even China at one stage.
She had lived in twenty three of the fifty states of America, spent four months in the Bahamas, and another four in Mexico.
Then, there was the whole being a third culture kid. By definition, being a third culture kid required that you grow in a truly cross-cultural world, and actually lived in different cultures rather than observe them.
To a young Sam it meant that she could fluently speak two languages at ten, but couldn't spell in either of them. Besides English, of course..
It meant she could pretty much pack up everything she owned in less than a day, ready to move that very same night. It meant she spent many happy hours in airports on the way to a new country, a new home.
It meant she had ten very full address books by time they settled down, and she still sent Christmas cards, New Years cards and birthday cards every single year without fail.
When they did settle down, when Sam was fourteen, just before her mothers death, it meant Sam could get angry at people in a different language, and they wouldn't have a clue what she was saying.
Well, that worked most of the time. Sometimes she be mid-rant and discover the person took the language as an elective, or spoke it fluently. That had been embarrassing..
Being a military brat actually gave Sam a wonderful ability to haggle. It had come in handy so many times off world, and she loved the looks on the rest of SG-1's faces when she got them what they wanted at far less then what the alien shopkeeper wanted.
"Sam?" Daniel said, surprised when she handed the stall holder a lot less money than the linguist was going to pay.
"I did not believe the stall holder would lower his price." Teal'c said, nodding his head slightly.
"Yes Carter, how did you do that?" Jack asked as they walked from the village.
Sam grinned. "I was a military brat sir."
It gave her cleaning skills to. Daily inspections of her room by her dad had quickly made her into a model child, with nothing out of place if it had a drawer to go into.
The one thing Sam didn't exactly love was having to answer the question "where are you from?"
As any military brat can understand, or anyone who had lived all over the world can understand, "where are you from?" is a very hard question to answer. Sam could tell you the political system of India, and when the death penalty was abolished in seven different countries- heck, she could tell when it wasn't acceptable to eat with your left hand, but she couldn't tell you where she was from.
After years of having no answer, Sam finally thought of one. She was a child of the world.
That really was the downside, despite the initial culture shook Sam received when settling down permanently for the first time.
People could say what they liked about military brats, about how they grew up to have social problems, and problems with fitting in, but it was being a military brat that shaped the person Sam would become, and gave her this amazing life.
Sam knew that if she hadn't spent so much time in foreign air force bases, she would have never joined up. She would have become a professor, or a researcher, but not an air force officer.
If she hadn't become an air force officer, she probably wouldn't have joined the stargate program. She wouldn't have got to visit other planets, command the lost city of the ancients, Atlantis, she wouldn't have time travelled, met aliens, and she wouldn't have met SG-1.
Sam couldn't imagine her life without her three brothers, Daniel, Teal'c and Cameron. They weren't related by blood, but they were a lot closer than Sam and her real brother.
She wouldn't have met Vala, and however uncontrollable, crazy and annoying she was, she was one of Sam's best friends. They were almost sisters, dare she say it.
Of course, if she hadn't become part of the Stargate Program, she would have never met Jack O'Neill.
Not having Jack in her life was something Sam couldn't bear to think about.
Sam half closed her eyes against the early afternoon glare, and looked at her husband Jack playing with their two kids, Grace Janet, and Jacob.
Yup. Growing up as a military brat had it's perks.
FIN.