Sam took a seat next to Daniel on the wooden bleacher-type benches in what amounted to the village's town hall. He jostled her and fidgeted in an attempt to find a comfortable position with two heavy volumes on his lap. Why he needed them, Sam wasn't sure. It wasn't that he hadn't explained; Sam's focus had been reserved solely for her equipment as the first of the three days the Colonel had promised her faded into dusk.
The colonel collapsed onto the bench next to her. His black t-shirt and skin were warm from the suns. He was panting slightly and, when she looked at him, she could see the hair at his temples was dark with sweat. She handed him the half-empty bottle of water from between her feet.
He took it, drained it, and then dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. After a few deep breaths, he turned one eye on her. "Your equipment is heavy, Carter."
Before she could ask, he and Teal'c began moving her magnetic particle inspection equipment to the makeshift laboratory space she'd been granted. The borrowed unit from the SGC was large and, as the colonel had pointed out, quite heavy as it was designed as a stationary unit. While they had transported the component pieces from the gate to the village by cart, moving the pieces from the house where they'd been temporarily stored to the temple had been a task best done by hand – specifically, two hands attached to Jaffa-sized muscles and the colonel's for good measure. Really, she thought he probably jumped into that task because it was something to do besides sit and watch her do research.
He'd surprised her, actually, by appointing himself the person in charge of making sure she ate each meal and drank her fair share of the local fruit juice that came out of something that looked like a beet but tasted a little like a carroty banana. That fantastic meat from the day before had shown up again in her breakfast – shredded into the batter of a savory pancake-like thing that she'd probably dream about once Rorilia was nothing more than a distant memory. He'd brought her lunch and dinner, too, chuckling when she screwed her face up at the fruit-salad-with-grits thing that had been supper.
She didn't know how Daniel had been faring, but considering she'd seen little of Teal'c, she imagined that the colonel had assigned the Jaffa to the archaeologist and that Teal'c was providing a similar service. Sam and Daniel's predisposition for skipping meals, sleep, and showers in deference to their work had preceded them by quite a margin after only the first handful of weeks on the team. Since then, their reputations had only gotten worse.
He leaned over, his chest pressed hard against her thigh, and it took her aback for a moment before she realized he was reaching for Daniel's water as well, his fingers scrabbling against the edge of the plastic bottle. Daniel looked up distractedly, nudged the bottle with the side of his foot until it tipped into the colonel's hand, and then went back to his books. Sometimes the two of them communicated in a way that made her wonder just what exactly happened on Abydos that made two incredibly different guys sync up the way they did. Oh, she'd witnessed some head butting between them, but their connection was clear. It was sweet and comforting, in a way, to know the hard-nosed colonel was capable of that kind of bond, but it made her feel like an outsider.
Behind the three of them, Teal'c claimed a seat. She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled. He nodded, but that ever-present frown on his face left her feeling a little unsettled. The big man's deep voice and formidable skills were in direct conflict with the gentle nature she'd judged him to have.
Surrounded by her team – all of whom individually left her feeling vaguely unbalanced at any given moment – she felt settled for the first time since she'd stepped into the hall where Eduan, Baurton and Ohara were having a quiet but heated discussion.
The colonel squeezed the second empty water bottles after he'd finished it. The foreign sound of crinkling plastic drew the gazes of the surrounding villagers and Sam quietly took the bottle from him and had to check a grin at the slight pout that pulled at his mouth and then settled between his eyebrows. It suddenly occurred to her that he was always in motion. She handed the bottle back but admonished him with a "shhh" and when he smiled at her, really smiled, she realized that he truly was a very dangerous guy. If she were any other girl, that smile might mean trouble.
But she wasn't any other girl. She was just the girl he would pretend to marry so she could buy enough time to figure out what was happening to the Rorilian people's planet.
At the front of the room, Eduan stood. The quiet murmurings of the villagers fell silent. "I have gathered you here," he began with authority, "to ensure we move forward as one mind. The village, it is being shaken! The teachings say that the gods have made it clear what is expected of us and that when we disobey, their displeasure will be known with speed and strength we should fear. We should fear now. We should fear because our fates are in the hands of these outsiders." He swept his hand out in a grand gesture that, when accompanied with his booming and haughty voice, put Sam in mind of televangelists.
His voice softened. "But I am told I should not worry. I am told that the ones who have angered the gods will bring peaceful rest back to our village."
"Hey, wait a minute," the colonel interjected, "we didn't start anything."
"You will choose to see things in your manner, Colonel O'Neill," Eduan said in a way that made it clear that he placed the blame for the current situation solely on the colonel's and Sam's own shoulders. "But the fact remains, the ritual, once begun, must be completed. And you have agreed to complete the rituals, have you not?"
Sam shot a glance at the colonel. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Yeah. We agree."
"And yet it's been more than a day and Captain Carter still has not ventured to the temple to be attended to."
"She has been tending to her machines," Baurton said. His voice dripped with a vitriol that stained his handsome face.
Sam was momentarily flummoxed. This was the same man who had, just the day before, all but demanded she use those same machines to determine what was happening to the planet. Then, though, Baurton shot a glance at Eduan's back that could have melted tungsten. Something was at play between the two men, she was sure of it. Not knowing what it was, though, meant she was still in as delicate position as she'd been in before. Baurton met her eye and while the look therein was not malicious, it was cool, calculating and more than a little confusing.
"She will be allowed time to consider her science, Eduan, you have agreed."
He had? Sam wondered just how much she'd missed while she'd spent the day holed up with her data. Quick glances at the colonel and then at Daniel showed neither one of them were aware they'd been the subjects of debate, either.
"She will be married," he said angrily and banged a fist onto the table. Ohara murmured to him, he took a deep breath and then opened his mouth to continue. He didn't get the chance.
"She is doctor of things that are going to save your asses," the colonel jumped to her defense with more vigor than she really thought the situation warranted. "And she isn't the only one you need to marry off. So maybe you shouldn't piss off her fiancé."
When Sam was able to wrench her eyes from her commanding officer, whose vehemence had forced him to stand, she was surprised to find Ohara sitting between the two feuding Rorilians with a small smile playing around her mouth.
"Jack," Daniel said quietly and reached in front of Sam to touch the colonel's wrist with just the tips of his fingers. The colonel looked down at Daniel, his dark eyes flashing with intensity.
"Perhaps all of you should take a moment to gain perspective," Ohara said and Sam would have sworn she heard humor in the other woman's voice. "Eduan, Colonel O'Neill, please sit and discuss this as learned men. Anger will get us nowhere beyond this room."
"We have placed the fate of our people and our village in the hands of two people who do not care to save it," Eduan complained.
"Perhaps it is that they do not share your opinion that your gods will tumble your city down to rubble," Baurton interjected.
"That would be a boon for your cause, would it not, Baurton? Perhaps you push where you should not."
"I choose to seek a solution wherever there might be one."
"As do I, my esteemed brother," Eduan spit. "With whatever tools might be at my disposal."
"Tools beyond teachings will be our salvation." Baurton said and whispers moved through the crowd.
Sam's head was beginning to ache as she tried to follow what was surely years' worth of undercurrent being revealed by the current situation.
"Colonel O'Neill and Captain Carter have agreed to you your terms, Eduan. It will not be the end of the village to allow them to reconcile their own customs to ours." Ohara met Sam's eyes once again. Sam was suddenly sure Ohara heard things Sam couldn't say during their conversation the day before.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
The next morning she was up and out of her temporary quarters before the second sun had risen. The promise of a new lab and overnight data from the magnetic particle inspector were a siren's call too loud to deny. She wound her way through the back hallways of the surprisingly intricate temple and, when she pushed the heavy door into the room she'd been given, she was shocked to find the colonel sitting there on a stool with two cups of kevvi and one of the fruit pastries she'd eyed after the town hall meeting the night before but hadn't had the appetite for.
"If you were much later you'd have come in to crumbs," he quipped.
"You showed marvelous restraint, sir," she said with a quick grin.
He waited for her to wake up her laptop before he pushed the pastry in her direction. "Breakfast now, data later."
"This will only—"
"Ack! Captain? Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."
"There's some debate about that, sir." She said, but she still lifted the pastry to her mouth and took a bite. A bright flavor that vaguely resembled citrus burst across her tongue and tantalized her taste buds. "Oh my god," she groaned.
"Good, right?" he asked with a grin.
"That's really amazing."
"I should get extra points for not eating it even after knowing how good it is."
"You'd have denied me the most important meal of the day?" she feigned shock.
"Well, I hear there's some debate about that."
They smiled at each other just a moment too long and Sam remembered she wasn't supposed to make friends with him. He was her CO, nothing more. She wasn't supposed to make friends with any of them. Do the job, be a team, save each other's asses, go home, and get some of whatever you need from somebody who isn't your teammate. Preferably, she added based on her personal experiences, from somebody who isn't military.
He watched her closely, she noticed out of the corner of her eye, as she ate with one hand and pecked at keys on her laptop with the other. When, at one point, she relinquished the pastry for the hot cup of kevvi, he reached over and broke off a corner of flaky crust and popped it into his mouth. She pushed the plate across the table to him and he accepted it eagerly before she went back to her data.
"Learn anything interesting?" he asked her around a mouthful of her purloined breakfast.
In fact, there was a lot of interesting information on her screen. She may have only been under him for a few months, but she'd already learned his limited tolerance for her scientific ramblings. "You want the Cliff's Notes version?"
"Please."
"The free-floating particles of UME-001—"
"UME? Seriously, that's what you're calling it?"
"Yes, sir. Unknown Metallic Element."
"Boring."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"That's a boring name, Carter."
"Well, what would you rather I called it?"
"Oh, I don't know," he cast about, "something snazzy. Like…Rorilium."
"Rorilium?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"We don't just get to name things, sir. There's a process."
"Hey, you discovered it. I could have suggested Carterium."
"I think UME-001 will be just fine for now, sir."
"Boring," he huffed again once more under his breath before popping the last bite of the pastry into his mouth.
"Anyway," she said and tried not to roll her eyes, "the free-floating particles of UME-001 are showing spikes in their detectable levels that coincide with the tremors. That, along with seismic readings that indicate strengthening tremors as the overall UME levels rise and interact with the ionosphere, leads me to the conclusion that the metallic element is where I should be concentrating my research."
"And then what?"
"Sir?"
"Well, what happens when you figure out how UME-001 is interacting with the iono-whatever?"
"Sphere," she corrected automatically. She shrugged, "Well, I figure out how to stop it."
"We have told you how to stop it, Captain Carter," Eduan said as he stepped through the open door into the temporary lab.
Sam sighed and tried not to notice the instant grimace that the colonel had adopted as soon as the older man had come into the room. She channeled as much of Daniel as she could muster. "I understand your religion is very specific about the ceremony Nenetl began the day before yesterday, but my equipment is picking up quite a bit of activity that can be explained by the increased presence of this metal in your air."
"Put there by the gods, no doubt, to show their displeasure. Displeasure, I will remind you, which can be assuaged only by the completion of the ritual tlālli marriage you have both agreed to."
"Yeah, yeah, we will. But Carter's got a lot of fancy information there that says there's more going on than a couple of angry gods."
"Sir," Sam said quietly, in hopes the colonel would understand she was admonishing him for his marked lack of diplomacy.
The colonel took a deep breath and scrubbed a hand down his face. "Eduan. Captain Carter is smart. Really smart," he frowned. "Smarter than all the rest of us put together."
"Sir—"
"Now's not the time for modesty, Carter." He turned his attention back towards Eduan. "We'll get to your ceremony, but she wouldn't be putting it off if it wasn't important. And Daniel mentioned there were a bunch of pre-wedding…things…that needed to be done?"
Sam kept a half an ear on the colonel's conversation as she scanned over the rest of the overnight data. Apparently, he was happy enough to deflect Eduan's attention for the time being. In truth, he'd run a fair bit of interference since the whole thing started. Apparently he was no more anxious to pretend to marry her than she was to marry him. Despite the circumstances, she couldn't help a slight pang of well, why not? What's wrong with me, anyway? Besides, it's not as if they were pretending to get married; they were pretending they'd pretend to marry. Suddenly she was very confused and it had nothing to do with the exponential numbers on her computer screen.
She flicked her glance back up to the colonel who was looking obstinately at Eduan. She chanced a look at Eduan and found him studying her intently and then shifting his eyes towards the colonel. He looked like he was assessing them. Great. What had she missed? She couldn't help the frisson of nerves that skittered up her spine. This is precisely why she was supposed to pay attention to everything.
"Right, Carter?"
She looked at the colonel, dumbfounded. Right, what? He tilted his head toward her a little, shot her a tight smile, softened his eyes – she'd have sworn it – he knew she hadn't really been paying attention.
"Yes, sir," she finally decided. "That's right."
"She shouldn't need more than…what? Two more days?"
"Oh. Well, theoretically, I should be able to—"
"Fine." Eduan cut her off. "This day and the next. If by then she has not been seen by the attendants, she will be sent for."
"Hey," the colonel bristled but Eduan cut him off.
"You are in no position to posture, Colonel O'Neill. She will have her two days." Eduan turned back to Sam. "My wife tells me you are concerned about Earth rules that prohibit your marriage to Colonel O'Neill."
Sam struggled to contain her groan and couldn't help but look guiltily at the colonel. His eyebrow was raised in what she could only guess was confusion and, possibly, some amusement if the tip up at the corner of his lips meant anything. She opened her mouth to reply but when the words didn't rush forth, Eduan continued.
"And, perhaps, your heart belongs to another man you were supposed to marry."
She looked back at the colonel, his face suddenly pulled into a moue.
She watched him carefully as she replied, suddenly fascinated with the range of emotions she saw around his eyes. "My objections to marrying the colonel have nothing to do with my former engagement. And Ohara was right. There are regulations that prohibit the development of a personal relationship between the two of us." She watched as the colonel's gaze dropped to the floor. She shifted her attention to Eduan so she wouldn't have to see the colonel's reaction to her next revelation – that she wasn't, perhaps, as stoic as she should have been when it came to the development of personal relationships with her teammates. "But, I'm objecting because there's a purely scientific explanation for what's happening here. We can attempt to appease your gods all we like, but no amount of inappropriate behavior between me and Colonel O'Neill is going to be the answer."
Eduan pierced her with a look. "You will be married, Captain Carter, as the teachings of my people decree. You have visited the possibility of ruin upon my village and that will not be tolerated. I have held my temper to this point and I will honor the two days your colonel has requested. But do not push me further, girl; I will not have it."
Sam felt herself flush with anger as she was admonished like a child by a man who didn't know her. The colonel took a step towards her despite the table that separated them. "Sam," he said quietly and shook his head once when she met his eye.
Eduan swept out of the room in a whirlwind of brown and bone-colored robes. She was concentrating hard on regulating her breathing and cooling her ire. The colonel was considering her carefully, his head tilted a little to the side as if she was a conundrum he couldn't quite figure out. "So, where'd you zone out to?"
"I'm sorry, sir?"
"You checked out of that conversation for a little while. Where'd you go?"
She shook her head, unwilling to share her inner-conflict with him. "Nowhere, sir. What did I miss?"
"More of the same. And a little tlālli pressure."
"Tlālli," she scoffed. "Right. What makes a seven year old girl think we're such a good match, anyway?"
"I don't know Carter," he said and then pushed himself away from the table and towards the door. He threw his last words over his shoulder before he left. "But I think you're probably a catch."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"Is it just me, or is Eduan a little less hospitable than he used to be?" Daniel asked as he plopped down at the picnic table that SG-1 had appropriated by the well.
The colonel grunted noncommittally and shoved another bite of the Rorilian porridge into his mouth.
"I've got only today to figure out why UME-001 reacts the way it does with the ionosphere and figure out how to stop it."
"I'm sure Jack would give you more time if—"
The colonel spoke around a mouthful, "Not my mandate, Daniel."
"It kind of was."
Sam shook her head. "Eduan implied he'd force my participation if it came to that." She took a sip of kevvi and pushed her porridge around in her bowl with her spoon. "Have you found out anything else about the marriage ceremony?"
"Just the eight quick phases thing. I've been concentrating on the books that mention the tremors."
"Books, plural?"
"Yeah," he said, his excitement mounting. "Some of the books are very old and in a different dialect of the language. It's interesting, actually. The older language appears more nuanced with structural dissimilarities that are typically found as a language evolves."
"Doesn't sound interesting to me," the colonel put in.
"It's interesting," Daniel said with exasperation before stealing the colonel's untouched cup of kevvi, "because the Rorilian language seems to have devolved – at least, according to what we know about the evolution of languages – since these texts were written. Some of them are almost a thousand years old!"
"So?"
"So…I don't know yet, Jack. That's why I'm going back today. Right now as a matter of fact."
Daniel hadn't made it three steps away from the table when the colonel stopped him and tossed him a piece of fruit that he'd produced from who knows where, probably one of his cargo pockets. "Breakfast."
Daniel shot him a pleased, crooked smile and headed off towards Scholar's Hall.
Sam took the opportunity to gather up the notes she'd brought with her to the breakfast table. She'd pushed herself up off the bench and had almost made her getaway.
"Carter, sit. Pushing your food around in the bowl isn't eating it," the colonel admonished.
She sighed and checked the impulse to tell her commanding officer she was a grown woman and could look after herself, especially since she'd given him ample proof that there were times that was untrue. "It doesn't agree with me, sir. I'll grab a power bar from my bag on my way to the lab."
"Carter."
Dammit. She knew that tone of voice. That was his 'I'm going to be serious for a few minutes' voice. That meant she couldn't just blow him off. She sat back down. "Yes, sir?"
"This is day three; we need to assess. How about a sitrep, Captain?"
She couldn't help but deflate a little. "Well, sir… I know that the metal is interacting with the ionosphere."
"Even I know that by now. What else you got?"
"What I've got doesn't make much sense. This metal is somehow exciting the ionosphere and interrupting the expected ionization of free negative electrons. We'd expect to see those electrons interacting with the positive ions that are a result of the suns' radiation."
"Carter—" he said, strained, and she knew she was reaching the edge of how much science he was willing to endure.
"Right. Simultaneously, we're experiencing tremors that are, right now, benign. Nevertheless, they're increasing in intensity and coinciding with spikes of the levels of the metals in the atmosphere. I'm going to have to float a sensor balloon to take more specific ionospheric readings."
"So, you need more equipment from the SGC."
"Yes, sir."
"Do we actually have this equipment?"
"Yes, sir. We've recently brought a meteorologist on staff. And prior to that we've had two geologists."
"Right. And you're going to want to stick around here to fiddle with your equipment a little more?"
"Yes, sir." They both knew that meant he'd be the one making the hike to the gate.
"Okay. Make me a list; I'll go check in with Hammond. You do what you need to so we don't have to get hitched."
She grinned. "I thought you said I was a catch, sir."
"Carter, a guy like me catches a woman like you, he's got more than he can handle."
She felt herself blush. She knew it was just his way of deflecting, but it was sweet in a way she wasn't used to. It was also uncomfortable to think about him as a man who thought about her as a woman. She'd assumed he was largely unaware of her gender despite the fact that one of the first things he'd done was flash her that slow, provocative smile and tell her he liked women. She wasn't naïve; she knew what that implied. She also knew that the key to that conversation was that she wasn't a woman; she was a scientist – as if, somehow, the two couldn't exist together. Since that time, she'd taken the little flirts and compliments as facets of his personality and she hadn't thought anymore about it.
Until...until she'd had to lay bare the failings of her personal life and he'd been surprisingly un-Jack-O'Neill-like about the whole thing. She hadn't gotten into the specifics with him, but based on her history and his clearance level, it wouldn't have taken him long to find out that the troubles between her and Jonas had made it all the way to their respective CO's offices and why, exactly, a man of Jonas' age and education had a PCS to the SGC as a captain rather than a major.
A flurry of activity pulled her attention away from the colonel and she could feel the heat drain out of her face as soon as she broke his gaze.
The main road through the village ran outward from the courtyard with the well and communal dining tables. In one direction was Scholar's Hall where Daniel had holed up for the better part of the mission. In the other direction was the temple where her temporary lab was set up. There were boxy houses just off one side of the courtyard that repeated in long rows for several blocks and spread out into the dusty plains becoming more hut-like the further away from the village they were. On the other side of the courtyard were the buildings that seemed to belong to Baurton and his ilk: the barracks, a few shops, and the town hall-like building where the village had gathered two night's before to find out exactly how Sam and the colonel had suddenly become an important part of their lives.
But the activity that drew her gaze down the road in the direction of the temple was strange. There were children hooting and hollering. A game gone wrong, perhaps? Or a tussle? She wasn't sure. She hadn't seen children in or around the temple at all during their stay on Rorilia. Ohara had mentioned that children didn't worship along with adults, and it had registered with her that she'd never even seen the children venture to that end of the village.
She looked back down at the papers she'd gathered before when she was going to try to make a break for it. The notes she'd grabbed were mostly worthless – old information, a day old already. She'd have to go get the more up to date information. And her laptop wouldn't hurt. As the colonel pointed out, she had just one more day to make enough progress to stall their wedding.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
By the time she was able to head towards her lab, the suns had surpassed high in the sky and were headed back towards the horizon. Daniel had reappeared with a book that included equations that had, after several hours of excited calculations, proven to be unrelated to the task at hand. The colonel had returned with the equipment she'd requested and she'd calibrated the new machinery to work in Rorilia's slightly odd geomagnetic field.
At some point she'd stopped for a late lunch and a bath when the colonel had helpfully pointed out that not only was she covered in a fine layer of the gritty, mustard-colored sand she'd been wallowing in under the larger equipment, but she also didn't smell so great.
She was combing her fingers through her wet hair and chatting with Daniel about his day's progress when she stepped into her lab. It wasn't immediately apparent what was wrong, but something was. She checked the magnetic particle inspector, and it was fine. She turned to wake up her laptop, but it was gone. So was the leather-bound folio that held her loose-leaf notes.
Daniel was still chattering away about something but she wasn't following his litany any longer. She was racking her brain. Had she taken the laptop and notes back to the little house? To the courtyard, perhaps, at one of the meal times? Did the colonel take it with him to the gate?
"Sam?" Daniel broke her reverie. "What's wrong?"
"Have you seen me with my laptop today? Or my notes?"
"You had notes at breakfast," he said with a shrug.
She shook her head; no, those were outdated. "At any other time?"
"Nope."
She took a deep breath. She hadn't thought she was overtired, but apparently, she'd been mistaken. She left the lab behind, Daniel still following along talking a mile a minute, oblivious to anything that wasn't the exciting world of the Rorilian language shift that had occurred four hundred years prior – okay, so perhaps she'd been paying a little bit of attention.
She was nearly frantic by the time the search of the house and courtyard turned up nothing. She'd been previously denied entry to the barracks because that's where the men of the security force were housed. However, at the hour, she knew them to be training out in the grass fields where the children had been playing when she and the colonel had been roped into the whole mess. It was that arrogance of foresight that presented her with an image of her nearly naked CO as he stepped out of the communal bath and into the main bunkroom at the same moment she burst in.
She was dumbfounded. He was tall, lean, tan and wearing nothing but a set of jockey shorts-style underwear she'd never fully appreciated until that moment. He'd stood there, looking at her while he toweled his hair until she had, apparently, appreciated him for too long.
A bemused smile spread across his face. "Captain? You needed something?
She flushed from the roots of her hair down to her belly button. She knew that deep blush; she'd been intimately acquainted with it since her brother had flung a training bra across the hallway between the junior high and high school corridors when she was fourteen and had the huge crush on his best friend Eric Elliott who was never more than a few steps away from the magnanimous Mark Carter.
She spun on her heels and presented him with her back. "Oh my god, sir, I'm so sorry."
He chuckled and she could hear the rustle of ABUs behind her. "Carter, they're just underwear. And you can turn around now."
She did, only to find him standing there in his unbuttoned and unzipped pants, bare chest damp and gleaming behind his dog tags, and she found that sight oddly more intimate than the long-glimpse she'd had of him in far less moments before. She averted her gaze to the floor. "I'm sorry, sir."
"We've established that. What did you need?"
"Oh." She looked up in time to see him pull a black t-shirt over his head. She watched him tuck it in and fasten his pants before she remembered she was supposed to be talking. God, this is embarrassing. "Have you seen my laptop?"
"Not since last night in the lab."
"Neither have I. It's gone, sir. My notes, too."
"Gone? For cryin' out loud, Carter; no one here can use it."
"I know that, sir."
"Are you sure it's not in your room? You've been in and out of there a few times today."
"I've checked. Not there."
"The courtyard?"
"No."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"I'm doing risk assessment in my head, Captain. There wasn't enough brain power to supply words, too."
She quirked a grin. "Yes, sir."
"Who benefits from a missing laptop and notes?"
"Eduan," she said quickly.
"That's where I ended up, too."
"But he's been with us all day, scowling at the new equipment."
"That doesn't mean he didn't take it. It just means that you didn't see him take it."
"Sir, he's been a pain in the ass, but he's been fair."
"He's not exactly your biggest fan, Carter."
"So, now what?"
Daniel and Teal'c entered the barracks, the wooden door slapping shut behind them. "Any luck, Sam?"
"What, you thought I was going to find my laptop in here? That the colonel would be playing minesweeper and having a big laugh at my expense?"
He raised his hands in supplication. "Hey, just asking."
She exhaled heavily and pressed a palm over her eyes. "I'm sorry."
He patted her shoulder awkwardly. "It's okay."
"There are few people here who would benefit from the loss of your research, Captain Carter."
"We already got there, Teal'c," the colonel said and collapsed onto the edge of one of the beds. "Okay. So we… I… confront Eduan about the missing equipment. He denies taking it. Then what?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, Daniel, let's cut to the chase."
Sam sat down on the floor with her back against the bed facing him. "This is the last day he agreed to give me. He's going to force us to get married."
"He can try, Carter, but he can't actually force us into anything. Even if we participate in whatever it is he wants us to...participate in… it's not like it's anything but a means to an end."
"An end I'd prefer to avoid."
"Well," he huffed and grasped at the back of his neck, "yeah. Me too."
"But," she hedged, "we're going to have to confront him. I can't pretend as if I'm working because that'll solve even less than our getting married would and he'd know. And we can't get another laptop through the gate because Baurton's men have been checking all the deliveries that have come through the gate for weaponry, right?"
The colonel nodded. "Yep. And by now, I don't think any of them wouldn't know a laptop if they saw one."
"We don't have our weapons and we're outnumbered," Daniel reminded the team unnecessarily. "Can we sneak out to the gate in the middle of the night?"
The colonel shook his head. "Baurton's got a contingent of five men on the gate at all times. While we could do it, I'm not sure five bare-hands fatalities are the answer. Not yet."
"So…where does that leave us?"
Daniel cleared his throat. "There are seven more marriage rites to be performed."
"Daniel—" the colonel started, gearing up for a rant.
"It would buy us a little time, sir."
He studied her carefully. "So you're saying instead of pretending to pretend to go along with this whole marriage thing, that we actually pretend to go along with this whole marriage thing?"
She couldn't help the rueful smile. "Yes, sir. I think I am."
His head dropped back and she found herself inexplicably focused on his Adam's apple and the strong line of his turned-up jaw. "Carter, you're enough to give a guy whiplash, you know that?"
"Yes, sir."
He looked down at her and quirked an eyebrow at the mischievous look on her face. "So, what now?"
Sam looked down at her watch. "Three hours until sundown." She grimaced. "I suppose I have time to go see the attendants."
The colonel grinned. "It's a little early to be getting gussied up for the wedding, don't you think?"
Exasperated, she said, "I don't think that's what the attendants are for."
Daniel piped up. "Nope. As a matter of fact, it seems their only function is to show her how to prepare herself for the pre-marriage rites."
"Prepare herself?" the colonel asked aghast, just as she mirrored his tone with, "Excuse me?"
"That's one of the things I found along with the reference to the eight phases. You'll need to be dressed and prepared properly for each of the rites."
"What, exactly, do these rites entail, Daniel?" the colonel asked with steel in his voice.
"I don't know. Not yet," he hurried to continue when the colonel looked ready to blow a gasket. "But in light of today's developments I think I'll start the research on the wedding rituals right away. The element can…" he glanced at Sam and winced, "wait."
"Okay," the colonel said with finality. "Daniel's headed back to his books, Sam's going to the temple to do…whatever… I'm going to do a little creative recon to see if I can put my eyes on Carter's missing paraphernalia. Teal'c…go stand somewhere and look intimidating." He stood and offered his hand to haul Sam up off the ground.
Teal'c nodded and harnessed his ever-present frown. "If you believe that will be helpful, O'Neill."
The colonel, apparently, couldn't help but laugh and he clapped the big man on the shoulder as he walked by. "Well, Teal'c, it certainly isn't going to hurt."