I hereby dub thee "The One Shot That Would Not Die".
-----------------
It was only going to be dinner. A nice, quiet dinner. A little soup, a little salad, maybe a breadstick or two with the main course…some chit chat…just dinner. No big deal.
Dinner couldn't possibly be all that bad, could it?
Could it?
She'd been asking herself that same question all week, coming up with the exact same answer each time. Now it was Friday and the moment of truth was rapidly approaching. The moment that would either prove or disprove all of her theories in regard to this date.
Sam stared at her reflection in the mirror on her medicine cabinet. The woman standing opposite her looked way more pale and uncomfortable than Samantha Carter thought she should.
After being auctioned off to McKay, Sam had been angry. Beyond angry, in fact. She was spun into a whole new dimension of angry that she was unaware was in existence.
After a day, anger had given way to rage, the rage had given way to thought of unlikely revenge scenarios and the unlikely revenge scenarios, as she was now discovering, were quickly turning into irritation mixed with apprehension and quiet, creeping dread that burrowed it's way under her skin and made her feel cold all over.
Of all the people in the world to get saddled with for a date! Rodney McKay! What kind of sick, twisted cosmic joke was this? She couldn't recall any recent crimes for which she deserved to be punished in this way.
This was going to be a complete disaster. She could feel it all the way down to her bones. A complete, total and utter disaster. This would rival her junior prom in it's level of mortification and embarrassment value, she was sure of it.
It was McKay, after all.
Rodney McKay, a man who had done nothing but serve as bane of her existence since he first snarked his way into her life all those years ago.
Rodney McKay, the only man who'd ever called her a dumb blonde and not only lived to tell the tale, but escaped serious physical injury as well.
Rodney McKay, who was, no doubt, right this moment, on his way to pick her up, wearing that smug, smarmy smile of triumph identical to the one he's worn when he won the bachelorette auction.
Sam leaned over and put her hands on the basin of the sink, bracing herself.
Against what exactly she was bracing herself, she wasn't entirely certain.
She'd been to hundreds of planets, gone up against the System Lords, the Replicators...surely she could handle one geeky, self absorbed, chauvinist physicist.
Sure she could. Of course she could. It would be a cinch.
But she didn't want to. She shouldn't have to.
Damn Jack O'Neill. Damn him straight to the ninth circle of the tenth level of hell.
Carter glared up at her reflection. Jack O'Neill was going to curse the day he met her when she was through with him. This was all his fault to begin with. He was going to pay for this if it was the last thing she ever did.
She stared straight ahead for several minutes, visions of fit punishment being inflicted on the good General dancing in her head.
She'd start with itching powder...that was a classic. That was something he could appreciate. Timeless and beautiful in it's simplicity. Maybe after the itching powder she would graduate to something more sophisticated, like food poisoning…
Nothing fatal, of course, just something that would make him miserable for a day or two and remind him that she was not a woman to be trifled with under any circumstances.
After that, maybe she'd get really creative and do something with that fishing rod he kept in his office. Toss it into the kawoosh of an incoming wormhole, perhaps?
And if he still didn't get the hint at this point, then there was always-
The doorbell.
Sam's eyes squeezed shut and her face screwed up sourly.
He was here.
With one last look at her reflection and a silent promise to herself to get Jack back for this, she straightened her posture, put on an air of polite indifference and headed for the door.
It's for a good cause, Carter. A voice in her head said in a sing-song voice, sounding incredibly smug and very much like a man she was going to be murdering first thing on Monday morning, Think of the children.
She didn't appreciate being manipulated, not even by Jack O'Neill. As a result of his conniving, she was going to be forced to go out with a man whom, while she may have had professional respect for him (not that she would ever admit that to anyone out loud and only on rare occasion did she admit it to herself), she had no personal respect for the little toad.
If she had been grinding her teeth any harder her jaw might have snapped off.
The doorbell rang again and she only barely kept herself from barking "I'm coming!" in response.
She was quickly working herself into another fit of anger. That would never do. She had to try and be polite…
At least until McKay gave her a reason to kick his ass.
Which she would. With pleasure.
Sam took a deep breath to steady her nerves, grasped the doorknob and flung wide the door.
There he was, grinning at her over a cartoonishly large bouquet of Black-Eyed-Susans wrapped in moss green tissue paper that was almost as wide as she was.
He looked absolutely tickled pink, like a man who'd won the largest lottery in the country three times over. "Good evening, Samantha."
She took the flowers from him with a forced smile and laid them on the table next to the door where she usually dropped her keys when she came home at night, "Hi, Rodney."
If at all possible, he looked even more pleased than he had a few moments earlier.
McKay took a step foreword, but remained just outside her door, seemingly out of respect. He bent an elbow awkwardly and offered it to her in what he hoped was a gentlemanly fashion, "Shall we...ah...shall we go?"
Sam looked at the flowers for a moment before she turned to look at McKay appraisingly. He was dressed in a suit jacket over a t-shirt (thankfully plain) and pants with a freshly pressed look to them. He hadn't gone all out, but he hadn't worn one of his signature 'You could see it from the moon' shirts, either, for which she was secretly thankful.
His eyes were alight and his smile was sweet.
And he seemed genuinely thrilled to see her.
And not that 'I'm picturing you naked right now' way that he usually did, either.
After half a second's hesitation, Sam reached out her hand and tucked it into the crook of his offered arm.
Well, maybe this wouldn't be too bad.
-------------
A/N: Allow me to relieve your fears, dearest reader. There is very little chance that this will be anything shippy at all if I continue it.
The shirt that's visible from the moon line is cheerfully snatched from NenyaVilyaNenya. I doubt she'll mind.
