"You gonna make it, Major?"

Well, Sam hadn't thrown up in almost four hours, so odds were good. "Yes, sir."

"We can skip this," Colonel O'Neill offered as they headed for the large ballroom where the banquet was set.

"If we do, are you going to pretend we did it for my benefit, or for yours?" she asked with a smile.

"Let's call it mutual," he offered. "Fifty-fifty."

Her grin widened. "I would love nothing more than to blow this popsicle stand once and for all, sir, but Daniel's been deep in discussions with one of the anthropology guys since the wrap up ended. It seems wrong to leave him here alone."

"Wrong is making the two of us miserable for his benefit," the colonel said wryly.

She made a face. "Like I did last night?"

"We were hardly miserable," he dismissed with a shrug. "You weigh nothing."

Her face fell. "You carried me, too?"

"Guys!" Whatever Daniel had been talking about, he was excited. "We're at table seven with Doctor Lingstromer."

"Lingstromer," Colonel O'Neill repeated slowly.

"Where did you find our table?" Sam asked. In response, he headed to a smaller table in the corner and picked up three little paper tents. Their names were on them, with "Table 7" inscribed in smaller print.

"I saw the marker earlier," he said. "It's right over..."

His voice trailed off as he spotted it again. So did the colonel, and he took over. "Oh, fer cryin' out loud."

There, at table seven, sat Jenna and Kurt Lawton.

"You know what? I'll just go tell Doctor Lingstromer-"

"No," Sam interrupted, taking a deep breath. "Come on."

It was clearly a bad idea, but the two men followed her to their table and the three empty seats beside the man Daniel greeted enthusiastically. Sam introduced herself to him and the pair of kinesthesiologists that rounded out the table before saying, "Kurt. Jenna."

"Sam," Kurt greeted.

The three members of SG-1 took their seats, two content to ask for the butter and salad dressing while Daniel prattled on with the man beside him. The colonel ignored the salad almost completely while Sam poked at it, keen on rabbit food but not on making a mad dash for the bathroom. Soon, those plates were whisked away and replaced with an entree of grilled chicken that looked safe enough, though she couldn't help but wonder how long it had sat in a warmer and what temperature it had reached. Tentatively, she cut a bite off the end. It was dry and chewy, and she moved to the butter-soaked carrots.

"I can certainly understand wanting to stay on American soil," Daniel was telling their neighbor, "but I have to say, experiencing it in person has been incredible. If you ever have the opportunity, I would certainly encourage you to get out in the field."

"I have to admit, the association has some mixed feelings about sending people out there," Lingstromer replied. "Even for peaceful operations. Let's face it, Doctor Jackson, the military wouldn't be there if there weren't some danger."

"There will always be some danger," he argued. "Any time you're talking about a culture that's vastly different from ours, you run the risk of misunderstandings, and those can be dangerous. I've seen plenty of peaceful missions go wrong. But for those of us willing to take the risk, the payoff can be enormous."

"I'm certainly not the type to want to do that," the other man replied. "I like my hot showers and indoor plumbing too much, I'm afraid. However, I can see the appeal for some."

"Well, if you do go, the Air Force sets up the nicest housing by a landslide," Colonel O'Neill said, shoving another piece of chicken in his mouth.

Lingstromer smiled. "I'll keep that in mind. But I have a deeper concern. The study of other cultures should bring us closer – unite us. It should aid in conflict resolution. A friend of mine is on the ground in Afghanistan for exactly that reason – to help mitigate the differences between the military and the civilian population. And yet he's been asked multiple times to determine if a village has ties to al Qaeda and how big the threat is. He feels like they're asking him to draw targets. And that's not our place."

"With respect to your friend, Doctor," Jenna spoke up, "his place isn't in a combat zone at all. Especially if he doesn't want to be part of the fighting."

"You have to respect his attempts to minimize conflict," Daniel argued. "That saves lives. Military lives."

"You have to offset how much he may help with the fact that the soldiers out there are now responsible for him if it all blows up. That instead of watching their own backs, they're watching his. Untrained civilians have exactly zero place in military combat ops."

She shouldn't have done it. She was in a foul mood with an unhappy stomach and an aching head, and she should have just stayed out of it, but Sam said, "For your information, Jenna, the man you're talking to is an untrained civilian who's been watching my back in combat for the last five years."

"The down and dirty combat of deep space telemetry?" she shot back. "Give me a break, Sam. With the military's restrictions on women, you wouldn't know real combat if it bit you in the ass. You couldn't handle it."

"Jenna," Kurt warned softly.

"Couldn't handle it?" she echoed in disbelief.

"Carter."

"You couldn't even handle when Jonas brought it home!"

Oh, things were about to get very bad. "Ladies!" Jack intervened.

The two of them snapped back, eyes down. After a moment in silence, the woman across from him began sawing violently at her chicken as the one beside him curled her fists in her napkin.

A moment later, Carter said, "Excuse me," pushed away from the table and disappeared.

And a moment after that, Jenna Lawton headed the opposite direction.