Author: Jackie W.
Email: PG
Classification: Angst/Romance Season: Season 8 ending
Spoilers: Up through Season 8's Gemini
Summary: She's finally reached her limit. Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and places are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret Productions. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment, not monetary purposes, and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. Previously unrecognized characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Author's Notes: The break with no new Stargate was getting grueling and the spoilers for season 8 and 9 were flying. Muse wanted to write something that ignored most of them. This is how she thinks Season 8 should end.
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Sam collapsed without warning in the middle of the busy mess hall causing several colleagues to leap to try to keep her from hitting anything on the way down. She awoke, confused and extremely embarrassed in the infirmary fifteen minutes later. It was hours before she was released, the diagnosis simple exhaustion. Although both Daniel and Teal'c offered to drive her home Sam shooed them back to work and had an airman drive her home, thankful that Pete would still be on duty and she would be able to collapse without any questions or hovering. As she dropped her jacket keys and wallet in their routine spots she heard the annoying beep of the answering machine and knew it would drive her crazy until she unplugged it or at least quickly listened to the messages.
There were seven, all from her future mother-in-law adding more names to the guest list for the wedding. So much for the small intimate wedding she wanted. Sam's list for her side of the family totaled all of fifteen people. Pete's side was now at seventy-five. Hell she might as well invite all of the SGC at this rate. In a fit of spite she gleefully deleted all seven messages, knowing she would pay for it later. Then she set the phone to go directly to the machine and headed to bed.
Several hours later Pete was surprised to find her in bed asleep. He woke her with a kiss.
"Hey babe. You ok?" he asked.
"Just exhausted," she told him. Then when his hands started wandering she repeated it. "Really exhausted."
Even as he settled into bed she was falling back asleep, and therefore she was extremely annoyed when he reached for her again. In two seconds she was up out of the bed and heading for the door.
"Damn it Pete. I need to sleep. I'm going to the spare room," she complained.
When he left in the morning she was still out like a light and when she finally woke up it was almost ten o'clock. And she still felt like she could sleep for a year. It was a tough thing to admit, but stress and age had finally caught up with Sam Carter.
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Several months prior, SG1 had been captured by one of Ba'al's minions and Sam had taken the brunt of the questioning as they awaited the System Lord's arrival. Luckily SG3 had gotten there first. Her injuries had healed quickly and so she'd been out in the field again faster than was probably prudent, but she'd assured everyone she was fine, and since they were all used to her bouncing back quickly they had accepted her statement. Unfortunately the next couple of missions had been almost as brutal, with Ba'al gathering strength at every turn, and although there had been no major injuries to SG1, there had also been very little time to regroup before going back out again. The majority of the time Sam had spent on Earth she'd been conferencing with area 51 to design a new weapon for the X302's to use against the improved shielding Ba'al had on his ship. Even the little bit of downtime she'd managed had been far from restful as Pete had pushed her to set a fall wedding date so instead of relaxing there had always been some task that needed her attention.
Then they had finally defeated Ba'al, and there had been even more work. While Bray'tac, Ry'ac, Ishta and Teal'c had taken control of recruiting the Jaffa into the rebel forces to keep them from defecting to any other System Lord, Daniel had put together teams to visit planets formally under Ba'al's rule to spread the work of his demise and help some of the slave planets on the road to freedom. Sam had her own hands very full. The SGC was now the proud owners of it's own small fleet of Goa'uld ships, the rest having gone to the rebel Jaffa's and Tok'ra. Both the SGC scientists and those at area 51 were busy taking apart the various systems for study.
Looking back on it, it was hardly surprising that the physical and mental stress had taken a heavy toll on her. Or that now that she'd been ordered off of the base, she wasn't about to argue. She decided to go out on the deck with a stack of science journals and read. She checked in briefly with Daniel, letting him know she was alive and making sure that no crisis had arisen there. Then she stretched out in the early summer sun and eventually, abandoning even the reading, she pulled out a Discman and worked on her tan.
When she went inside later there were another five messages on the machine and her cell phone was beeping letting her know she had missed calls or messages there too. She checked her pager. Nothing, and since the General had given orders that she was to be paged rather than called, and then only with his permission she knew that none of the other messages were crisis related. She decided to ignore them for the time being. Sitting out in the sun she had noticed the horrible condition her feet were in, and now she made a quick phone call and after a light lunch she took herself off to the day spa for a manicure and pedicure.
She came home hours later feeling much more relaxed. Once she'd gotten to the spa the staff there had easily convinced her to also get a facial and massage, and she had finally and totally relaxed and left her care in their capable hands. Unfortunately, a lot of the good work done to relieve stress and loosen tight muscles was undone within five minutes of walking back into her house. Pete was waiting there with his own agenda and a slew of messages.
"Sam, where have you been? I've been trying to call but you weren't answering your cell. I was worried, " he told her.
"I'm sorry, I really was trying to get away from everything stressful today. I've been given strict orders to take better care of myself or be grounded," Sam told him.
"You do need to take better care of yourself," he agreed pulling her into a hug. "Maybe being grounded wouldn't be such a bad thing. Give your body a break," he suggested.
Sam pulled out of his arms abruptly at that. "Maybe, but when I stop 'traveling' I'd like it to be because I'm ready to, not because I've been grounded," she confessed.
"I know, but with the wedding to plan I just think it would be less stressful if you didn't have to 'travel' for a bit," he tried to convince her.
"Having a smaller wedding would be less stressful too, but I don't see you suggesting that option," Sam snapped a bit.
"Yeah but that's fun stress, not getting shot at stress," Pete assured her with a grin. "Speaking of which, my Mom called and wanted to know if you two are still on to go dress shopping this weekend."
Sam shuddered at the thought. Pete sure had a twisted idea of what was fun. Irene Shanahan had already sent her a dozen pictures of what she thought would be the perfect dress for her future daughter-in-law. Each had been more dreadful than the one before it. There was no way she could handle shopping with the woman without saying something she would regret later. Without even giving it a second thought she told a bold-faced lie.
"I doubt it. I'll know for sure after the briefing tomorrow, but if everything has checked out it looks like my team will be gone for three or four days," Sam lied.
SG1 didn't have anything scheduled until the following Monday, but Sam was slowly feeling the walls close in on her and suddenly had a need to get away from everything, And a plan was formulating. First thing the next morning, after deciding that she really did need to do something drastic or risk going crazy, she made several phone calls. The first was to General O'Neill to request a week of down time. The second was to Teal'c. Past experience showed that it was always best for at least one of her teammates to know her whereabouts, and Teal'c was the only once she trusted with the knowledge of what she had planned. Then she called to arrange to get her bike out or storage. She'd been meaning to do it for over a month, but just didn't have the time.
Well she was darn well making the time now. Her final call was to Pete. She had hoped to get his voicemail as she had her speech all planned out, but she caught him at his desk and was forced to tell him the fabrication 'face to face' as it was. She took a deep breath, crossed her fingers and told the man she was going to marry a huge lie.
"I'm headed out. It looks like it might be up to a week long, so if you don't hear anything don't panic. Tell your Mom we will get together as soon as I get back," she assured him.
During the next week she would have plenty of time to think about what a relief it had been to escape without Pete knowing where she was going and what that meant. It would be on about the third day that she would realize that she hadn't even said that she loved him before she hung up and that she actually thought of this little get away as 'escaping'.
Then she would be forced to stop and ask the question; just when did her life turn into something she wanted to escape from?
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TBC
