Incremental Chapter 1: First Impressions, a stargate: sg-1 fanfic

Incremental

Author: ShaViva

Rating: T

Season: Season 1 onwards

Summary: When Jack O'Neill was recalled from retirement he couldn't have guessed just where his new assignment would take him nor what would be asked of he and his team. Episode based collection of tags and challenge responses.

Classifications: General

Pairings: Probably hints (sometimes big ones!) of Sam/Jack

Acknowledgements: Gateworld transcripts and episode summaries - VERY helpful! This is unbeta'd - all mistakes are mine alone.

Disclaimer: I am unfortunately not associated in any way with the creators, owners, or producers of Stargate or any of its media franchises. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, equipment, etc are the property of whoever owns them. Any original characters, plot, settings, and anything else I made up are the property of me, the author. No copyright infringement is intended.

Authors Note:

The Team Flyboy thread on Gateworld has been doing a rewatch of both SG-1 and SGA (we're watching an episode every fortnight) - this story will be a collection of tags and challenge responses as we slowly work our way through the seasons. I'll try to tie each chapter together so it's a coherent story instead of a collection of one-shots. I hope you'll enjoy reading along with me as I revisit the things that made Stargate SG-1 so great.

"A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream."

Gaston Bachelard

Chapter 1: First Impressions

(Spoilers for: S01E01 - Children of the Gods)

"Just because my reproductive organs are on the inside instead of the outside …?," Samantha Carter repeated under her breath incredulously. "Are we going to have to arm wrestle?" her voice rose a little as she got to the end of that one. "They were the best comebacks you could come up with?"

Meeting her own eyes in the locker room mirror she saw the faint flush of red still colouring her complexion, not to mention the slightly wild look in her eyes. She had to pull herself together, get her game face well and truly in place before the next time she came into contact with h- them. With a sigh she shook her head, dropping down to the bench that paralleled the mirrors dejectedly. It wasn't like her to lie to herself and she wasn't going to start now, no matter how much meeting Colonel Jonathon 'Jack' O'Neill had thrown her.

He wasn't what she'd expected … the reality and what she'd imagined after reading and rereading his report on the Abydos mission were so far apart that she couldn't quite take it in. She thought he'd be older – more like General Hammond only rougher around the edges. She thought he'd be shorter too – that with her 5ft10 inches she'd be on a level with him as she was with most of the men she served with at the Pentagon. And for some reason she hadn't expected him to be so attractive either. The way his dark brown eyes had connected with hers – his smirk and that almost flirting look that had crossed his face when he'd told her he liked women – how good he looked in dress blues – she shouldn't have noticed any of that but she had. Why? Because contrary to everything she held dear, contrary to the way she'd conducted herself throughout her entire career, and despite her prior view that any officer who let themselves have feelings for a fellow officer in the chain of command was weak and undisciplined, she was attracted to Jack O'Neill.

Really attracted to him … enough that she could feel her face heating up again just thinking about her physical reaction to her temporary commanding officer.

What was she going to do about this? She'd worked damned hard for too many years to let a man get in the way just before the finish line. She'd dreamed of going through the Stargate for almost three years – had kicked herself when a little known archaeologist came in and within days solved the puzzle she'd spent two years on. Although in fairness she hadn't personally spent that time working on the gate symbols. Her job had been to create the dialling protocols and all the programming that went into making the gate work – and she'd succeeded too. Doctor Jackson's efforts would have been for nothing without Sam's work.

"You deserve to be on this mission," she told herself firmly. "You've earned it – and you'll do fine." Glancing at her watch she jumped up again, wrenching open her locker and hurriedly taking out her desert BDUs. She had less than five minutes to get changed out of her own dress uniform and make it to the gateroom. No way was she turning up late and risking comments about women needing longer to get ready.

Colonel O'Neill wasn't a chauvinist - she had to be fair about that. No, he was something worse – anti scientist. Sam knew how to deal with the guys who still thought a woman's place was anywhere other than in the military. She wasn't sure she knew how to deal with someone disliking her brains. She couldn't help who she was though and there was no way she was changing her behaviour to accommodate Colonel O'Neilll's prejudices. In fact, she suspected if she laid on the science talk thick enough, the Colonel would be the one to walk away and leave her to it.

Hurriedly buttoning her shirt and tucking it in, Sam grabbed her boots and moved back to the bench to put them on. Now that the idea of confusing him with science speak had occurred to her she ran the pros and cons through her mind.

He'd label her a geek and possibly stop listening to her before he'd even started.

He'd be forced to trust her because he wouldn't understand what she said; that or he'd order her to dumb it down – she wasn't sure which column to put that one in.

It was a tool she could use every time she felt in danger of being distracted by her attraction to him.

That last one was the biggest selling point – all she needed was enough time to get used to him, familiarity surely putting paid to her hopefully brief moments of inexplicable lust. By the end of this first mission she'd see through the attractive surface to the man underneath – and when she did whatever emotion was fuelling the fluttering feeling in her stomach would dissipate, like the heat trail from an F-16.

Pulling the laces tight, Sam rushed from the room to the armoury, grabbing a kit, weapon and helmet before continuing on. She smiled when she got there with a full minute to spare – take that men who think a woman can't get dressed on time!

Hammond was talking to the Colonel … her stomach gave that annoying flutter when she caught sight of O'Neill in BDUs – how could it be the man looked even more attractive than he had that morning? Turning her face away she focussed on the stargate. She'd seen it of course, many times, but not close up. The bright blue puddle shimmering in the centre called to her – she felt no fear at the prospect of being dematerialised. It was … beautiful.

"Captain?"

Sam turned to see the source of her immediate problems standing beside her, an amused expression evident. Great, she'd already started again on the wrong foot!

"Don't worry, Colonel. I won't let you down," she said quickly.

"Good. I was gonna say "Ladies first."" O'Neill quipped.

He strode up the ramp and Sam followed him. She meant to be less earnest, less ingratiating but instead found herself blurting out something that had her cringing mentally the moment it was said. "You know, you really will like me when you get to know me."

"Oh, I adore you already, Captain," the Colonel drawled.

Sam struggled not to let her mortification show. Insisting that he'd like her and having him reply so sarcastically was worse than the reproductive organs comment. Maybe she should just stop talking in his presence … that might work.

She had every intention of doing just that too, until she found herself right in front of an open wormhole for the first time and the sheer wonder of that got the better of her.

"My God ... look at this. The energy the Gate must release to create a stable wormhole is - is astronomical, to use exactly the right word," she reached out to touch it. "You can actually see the fluctuations in the event horizon."

The push was abrupt and unexpected, followed by a flash of cold motion and disorientation. The next moment she was stumbling onto another world. Her legs felt weak and her stomach even more so – she had to sit down before she disgraced herself by falling down.

When Colonel O'Neill strolled through the gate unaffected, stopping only to make an irreverent quip about the big lunch she shouldn't have consumed, Sam decided she wasn't attracted to him after all. In fact she was pretty sure she was well on the way to hating him. Smug … that was the word for her new CO.

Of course that irrational moment passed and while she still thought Jack O'Neill was too quick with the smart ass remark she couldn't fail to see the impression he'd made on the people of Abydos.

Later, after she'd displayed way too much of her enthusiastic geek persona, after they'd reunited with Doctor Jackson and the people of Abydos involved in the first stargate mission, the surprise that was Jack O'Neill continued to strike her.

The way he was with Skaara and the other 'kids', and the way they were in return spoke volumes. His irreverent, devil may care attitude couldn't be all there was – the Colonel had depths, hidden for sure but somehow that only made her want to dig deeper to find the real him underneath. A small kernel of suspicion over his 'scientific' knowledge emerged too – when she and Daniel had talked about Doppler shift and stellar drift his succinct summary had been spot on. The gate could go other places.

The situation on Chulak was tense but Sam never felt the situation was hopeless. They'd been imprisoned in a dungeon for god's sake – assessed by the Goa'uld like cattle stock – and yet somehow Colonel O'Neill had her believing it was only a matter of time before they'd be free. And he'd been right.

Now, the mission over, back in the locker room, Sam took a moment to think. She still couldn't believe it … one line 'I can save these people' and a plea for help, and he'd convinced Teal'c to betray his own race in favour of saving SG-1 and everyone held captive in that dungeon. The way O'Neill blasted that hole in the wall, the way he'd pushed everyone to escape … her heart raced even now just thinking about how inspiring and just plain captivating that had been. But the thing that truly amazed Sam was the fact that the Colonel brought the displaced Jaffa warrior home with them. He'd seen that opportunity, seen what Teal'c could be to them in an instance and then he'd acted. Any other commanding officer would have hesitated, planned on seeking approval back at the SGC before acting, but not Colonel O'Neill.

They'd lost Sha're and Skaara – Sam saw it in the Colonel's posture how much that had hurt but he'd kept going. They'd fought the Jaffa left behind and they'd won – and in the process saved more than a hundred people, all of whom would have died without Colonel O'Neill. Hell, she'd be dead were it not for him!

He'd backed up his actions too - when Colonel O'Neill stepped up and announced that Teal'c, an alien, would be part of their team, that was the moment when Sam realised how naïve she'd been. The fact that she'd reduced her first impressions down to basic physical attraction now felt disrespectful and even childish. She'd hoped to discover something about the man that would diminish her instinctive admiration and the crude label she'd placed on it. Instead she'd found a leader who inspired her to follow, a man who's integrity and determination had driven a Jaffa warrior to be the first to denounce the Goa'uld as false Gods, and a strategist who'd won them their first off world ally. It was easy to brush aside the rest – to focus on her place on the new team and on what she could learn from an officer with Jack O'Neill's experience.

Maybe she was still too attracted to him but it wouldn't be a problem anymore – because he deserved a whole lot more from her than that, and by god she was going to make sure she delivered.