Summary: Alternate Chimera 7x15
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: I ain't got no money, and nobody'd be daft enough to pay me for this.

AN: because I hate Shanahan and will come up with all sorts of ways to kill him off before I stop...(eg)

Chapter 1

Sam was stubbornly staring at her computer screen, firmly ignoring the mess of feelings hiding just under her tight skin after her blind date. When she heard her door close, she looked up in surprise to see Teal'c come to stand besides her. She straightened, wondering what was wrong for him to visit her with such a serious expression and close the door.

"MajorCarter, I wish to ask you something. Something which I believe would fall under the Tau'ri expression 'personal'."

Sam blinked, surprised and suddenly wary. It wasn't often that Teal'c pried into any of their feelings, but when he did, she suspected that even the colonel was in for a bad time. She didn't bother pretending she was cheerful, letting her tone go flat as she braced herself, "Yes?"

He nodded once, "Why have you suddenly begun 'dating', have you and O'Neill dissolved your-" Sam raised a hand in a 'stop' motion, wishing she could have kept him from saying the name in the first place but definitely not interested in how he was going to label.. 'it'.

They stared at each other silently for a minute, not challenging, just determining how serious they each were about having this conversation. Not that she really expected him to let it go if he'd made the effort to start it in the first place. The problem with indomitable friends was that once on a bone, they never let go; even if that bone was your screwed up feelings. She finally sighed and rubbed her hands over her face once, wiping off the mask she'd put on for work, poking wincingly at those pesky feelings and starting in a defeated voice, looking him straight in the eye.

"I'm tired Teal'c. I just want an actual chance to be happy, not just years-ago hinted-at feelings that can never come to anything, even if they actually exist. You may live to be 200, but I'm halfway through the average Tau'ri lifetime. And the longer you wait.. the less likely you are to find anything, any *one*, to end your life with. Even now.." she looked away, fixing on the dull grey wall behind him, "Maybe it's already too late. I sat there last night Teal'c, and I had *no* idea what I was.. supposed to *want*, or look for, or..." Sam's arms waved in frustration, fists clenched as tight as her shoulders had been for months as she tried to find any peace she could.

Teal'c waited for her to take a breath and settle a moment before responding with his usual calm tone, drawing her eyes back to him, "I, too, despaired, once." he nodded his head when she looked at him in disbelief, "Freedom may seem an obvious concept, but after so many years in Apophis' service, I had begun to wonder at what it could possibly mean. When I met O'Neill, yourself and DanielJackson, I was still not certain of what it was I was putting my family in danger for. And even after I *truly* began to understand what it could mean, how different my people's lives *could* be... There were many times over the years that I nearly despaired at our ever winning Freedom. But I *could* not." He looked at her with fierce eyes, trying to convey the dept of his belief, "The prize was, *is*, worth anything to me. I will fight for *another* 200 years without hesitation, because the merest *chance* of succeeding is worth more than any partial ease I could find by settling for less."

Swallowing thickly, Sam smiled a little, thinking how the colonel would react to being compared to the freedom of the Jaffa people. But it suddenly made sense to her. Yes, she could settle for some small simile of happiness, and there were probably days that she'd forget there could be more. But could she ever ask anyone to fight to the end for a cause if she did? If she gave up on what *she* wanted, could she ever ask the Tok'ra or the Asgard to take a risk to help them in some desperate hour? Ask a fellow soldier to stand with her against insurmountable odds?

She'd been ready to give up. To listen to that weak and tired inner voice that sent the image of her father and the colonel to bid for her to find a palliative for loneliness. But under Teal'c's steady gaze, she could not find the brashness to take such an easy way out, not after the years he'd spent in exile at her side, spurned by his own family, called a traitor by friends. A stranger on a world that wasn't always welcoming. All for the small chance that a race that had never before set foot on another planet, had no ship or shield, could somehow win out against oppressors that his warrior-kin had not been able to overthrow for thousands of years.

It wasn't the same. And yet it was. The personal sacrifice of his personal life, of family and peace; they shared that. And, she thought as she straightened and gave him a real smile, she should have remembered that she wasn't truly alone. He and Daniel and the colonel were there for her and she for them. It could never fill the intimate gaping hole in each of them, but none of them had to feel alone.

In a fit of optimism, she stepped up and wrapped her stately friend in a hug, deciding that she needed to apply some of her 'doohickey' concentration to getting her team closer again, patching up the stresses that had stretched them so far apart lately. Maybe forward momentum was all she really needed. Forward momentum applied where it could do some real good.