Spoiler for The First Commandment, Season 1.
Colonel Jack O'Neill felt he was fully capable of doing two things at once. Right now he was listening to Teal'c as the big Jaffa warrior told him and Harmon about Chulak; but Jack was also aware of Captain Carter and Dr. Jackson laughing together at their table across the room. They'd gotten pretty chummy all of a sudden! She was even offering him a bite of her blue jello! Yuck! Daniel didn't seem like the type to attract beautiful women—but his Abydonian wife, Sha're, was a knockout, and Captain Carter certainly was easy on the eyes. Lately Carter had been practically invisible—hiding in her lab, except when SG1 was called up for a mission. She did love going through the Stargate! Every time he saw her, though, she avoided looking at him and ran the other way. Wonder what that was about? She'd sure been hot enough for him when she caught that virus!
Teal'c asked him a question, and he quickly rerouted his attention back to his own table to reply. And now Harmon was getting to his feet. "Out on another recon," he commented before he left.
Jack and Teal'c exchanged a few more casual remarks. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack was watching as Carter and Jackson talked earnestly.
"Are you wishing to court Captain Carter, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked suddenly.
"What!?" Jack spun in his chair to face the Jaffa. "Am I what... No!" He realized that his voice had risen, and lowered it quickly. "No, of course not! Why would you ask such a thing?"
"I apologize, O'Neill," Teal'c said calmly. "I am unfamiliar with your Taur'i rituals. You have been watching Captain Carter quite intently ever since she entered the cafeteria. Among my people, such overt interest in a woman is generally a sign of sexual intent."
Jack choked. "Se... No, no, no!" He paused to catch his breath, and lowered his voice even more. "Teal'c, buddy, those kinds of comments should not be made in public places. Anyway, I wasn't watching Carter. I was... uh... thinking about—Daniel!" he said quickly, trying to rescue himself.
"Ah," Teal'c said understandingly. "I see. It is Dr. Jackson who interests you."
"Ye—no! I mean, not like that!" Jack glanced around, and was relieved to see that no one seemed to be paying any attention to them."Look... uh. We need to have a long talk—somewhere else!" He got to his feet. "Let's go down to my office."
"I have not finished my lunch, O'Neill," Teal'c pointed out. "Nor have you." He indicated Jack half-filled tray.
"Bring yours with you," Jack ordered. "I'm not hungry." He barreled for the door.
Teal'c raised an eyebrow and after a moment, picked up his tray and followed.
For the first time in weeks, Sam had actually forgotten about Colonel O'Neill, she was so engrossed in talking with Daniel. They both noticed the Colonel's abrupt departure from the cafeteria, however.
"Jack never leaves food," was Daniel's comment. "He must not be feeling well."
Sam and Daniel were finding they were very comfortable with each other. When they had met on Abydos, Sam had liked Daniel immediately, but things had gotten chaotic very quickly when the Goa'uld had attacked, and taken Sha're and Skaara as hosts. Since then, an understandably distressed Daniel had kept mostly to himself except on missions, and as Sam was behaving the same way, they had barely run into each other until now.
While they had been talking, Sam had eaten all her blue jello, but the cold meat and potatoes sat ignored on her tray. After a while she realized she was still hungry, and went to get something more palatable. Daniel got some coffee, and they continued to talk as she ate.
"Are you working on something?" She indicated the notebook he had been writing in when she joined him.
"I'm trying to recall more of the gate addresses on the Abydonian cartouche. There were so many of them; the videos you took didn't cover all the walls. I've been carrying the notebook around in case something occurs to me."
"The computer has only calculated the location of about two dozen of them so far. Most are relatively close to Earth. How far do you think the Stargate system extends?"
Daniel gave a clueless shrug. "All over the galaxy? Even beyond? I don't know."
"And we thought it only reached Abydos. Do you think the Goa'uld built it?" she asked.
He raised his eyebrows at her tone. "Don't you?"
"I don't know. Just a feeling."
"Funny you should say that. You know that the Abydonians weren't allowed to learn writing, don't you?"
"Yes. That was in the mission report from the original trip."
"Well, some of them did it anyway," Daniel said. "I was there a while before I found this out. Sha're's father was one. Sha're knew some writing—in fact, she's the one who showed me the hidden room with the cartouche of symbols. Anyway, they spoke the symbols as if they were letters, or maybe syllables. But some of the syllables didn't fit into the pattern of the Abydonian dialect, or even in the Goa'uld language."
"So, you think there was a third language being used for the gate symbols?" she asked.
"I know it's not much. But it makes me wonder if there was another group of people."
"Well, you're the linguist. If it makes you wonder, then it's probably worth more attention. Have you said anything to General Hammond?"
"No. I did mention it to Jack. He said—well, he didn't really say much. I don't think he was very interested. He told me to concentrate on the addresses."
"I think you should talk to the General."
"That'd be going over Jack's head, wouldn't it?"
She bit her lip. "Yeah. And if it were me, that might mean trouble. But you're a civilian—a consultant. And you don't seem to have any problem holding your own with the Colonel."
He looked at her, surprised. "Is that what it looks like? He swats me down at every opportunity!"
"But you keep getting up and coming back for more," she pointed out. "I think he's a little intimidated by you."
"Intimidated? Jack?" He shook his head. "I doubt it."
"Well, maybe that word's too strong. He respects you."
"Ha! He tolerates me. I'm just the new guy on the team."
"No," Sam said. "Besides, we're all new. No, I think it's more than that. I think he feels a bond with you. After all, you went through the first mission together. And he kept your secret as long as he could."
"That wasn't really for me. That was for Skaara, and those kids on Abydos. He wanted to do what he could to keep them safe. Skaara reminded him of his son."
"The Colonel has a son? I didn't even know he was married!"
Daniel looked uncomfortable. "Well, he isn't married now. They divorced after their son died."
"Oh, no!" Sam clapped a hand to her mouth. "His son died? That's awful."
"Yeah. It was just before the first mission to Abydos."
"What happened? Was he sick?"
"No. He accidently shot himself with Jack's service pistol."
Sam was speechless, staring at Daniel with huge, horrified eyes.
"Please don't tell anyone I told you," Daniel said. "I shouldn't have said anything."
She shook her head. "I won't. What a terrible thing," she whispered.
It took a while for their conversation to get back on track after that, but eventually they returned to the subject of the gate symbols.
"I think you should speak to General Hammond about the language," Sam told him.
"I'll think about it. I'll look at the symbols again and see if anything else comes to mind."
She glanced up at the clock on the wall. "Oh, gosh. I've been in here nearly two hours! I better get back to my lab."
"I should get going, too. Let me get some more coffee, and I'll ride up with you."
They left the cafeteria and walked to the elevator. Daniel pressed the call button and they waited. When it arrived and they stepped in, he glanced at Sam. "What level?"
"My lab's on 18," she said.
"Ah. So's mine."
He punched the button for 18. The doors slid shut and the car started to rise. They got out on their floor, and met Colonel O'Neill a few steps down the corridor.
"There you are, Daniel. Captain Carter." Jack's eyes swept over Sam briefly. He saw her hand tighten into a fist. What the hell, he thought.
"You looking for me, Jack?" Daniel asked.
"Both of you. SG-1 is heading out."
"Nothing's scheduled," Daniel said. "What's happened?"
"As you both know, SG-9 has been out of contact on the planet Avnil. There's been no word from Captain Hanson or his team for four days." Jack's tone was clipped and hard. "An hour ago the gate opened and Lt. Connor's signal was received, but no one came through. We've dialed out and tried to make contact twice since then, with no response. General Hammond is declaring the team MIA, and sending us to try and find them. Briefing in ten minutes, we leave in one hour."
"Okay," Daniel replied.
Jack shot Sam a look. She dropped her eyes. "Yes, sir," she said.
The briefing yielded very little more information than the Colonel had given them in the corridor. "We know at least one member of the team was still alive when the gate was activated," General Hammond concluded the briefing. "Your job is to find any survivors and bring them home." He waited for acknowledgements all around. As they rose from the table, Hammond turned to Sam. "Captain Carter, I will understand if you wish to exclude yourself from this mission."
"No, sir!"
"Why is that, sir?!"
Sam and Jack's exclamations overlapped.
Hammond looked at Jack. "Colonel?"
"Why would she want to be excluded, General?" His answer was to the General, but his eyes bored into Sam's. "Captain?" he questioned.
Great! Sam thought. Another chance to humiliate myself. "No, sirs!" She snapped out, stiffening to attention. "I do not wish to be excluded!"
"Very well, Captain," General Hammond said. "Dismissed, people."
The Colonel's eyes were still locked onto Sam's as he responded to the General. "Yes, sir."
Sam left the briefing room as fast as she dared. She heard Daniel trying to run interference.
"Jack. Can I talk to you about something..."
"Not now, Daniel." And rapid footsteps behind her.
He caught up to her in the corridor. "Just a minute, Captain."
She stopped and turned slowly toward him, tried to force herself to look him in the eye, but hers slid away.
"Captain?" he asked.
"Because..." she began, and chewed her lip. He waited. "Because... up until three months ago I was..." Her voice trailed off to a mumble.
"I didn't hear you, Captain."
She cleared her throat. More footsteps behind her, and Daniel stopped beside them.
"Jack..."
"Daniel," the Colonel growled.
"It's okay, Daniel," Sam said, forcing strength into her voice. "Colonel, until three months ago, I was engaged to be married to Captain Hanson, SG-9's CO. I broke off the engagement because he had become too... too controlling." She risked a glance at the Colonel's face. Was it her imagination, or had those brown eyes softened a bit.
"I see," he said, and there was something almost understanding in his tone. "And you're okay with going on this mission, Carter?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good," he replied, nodding almost pleasantly. "All right. Get geared up, and be in the gate room in fifteen." He turned and strode away down the corridor. "Well, come on, Daniel," he threw back over his shoulder. "You said you want to talk to me."