Guess I got this finished a little earlier than planned... Have some Daniel/Sam bonding. Spoilers for 'Beneath the Surface' expect some angst.
'Sam you okay?'
'Sam?' Thera looked up and saw a petite woman with auburn hair standing before her and looking at her in concern.
Janet Frasier.
She smiled awkwardly, nodding in a jerking fashion, trying to keep her thought process straight.
'Yes, I'm... okay.' She looked down at her hands which were clutching the material from her work tunic.
I'm Samantha Carter.
Major Doctor Samantha Carter.
I'm not Thera, she's not real.
She tried taking a few deep breaths in an attempt to quell the overwhelming urge to vomit. She could feel Janet's eyes watching her carefully and she just flopped back onto the bed, her head turned away.
A loud argument followed by a bang shook her from her confused and blurred mental maze and she looked round to see Karlan, Daniel bristling at the fallen figure of Jonah.
The Colonel, she thought sadly as she watched him get up and ready himself to strike back.
'That's enough! Daniel, Colonel, what the hell is wrong with you both?' Dr. Frasier stormed over to the pair and signalled for the security guards to separate them both. The two men looked at each other in confusion for a moment for looking round at her. She shrugged and got out of the bed, letting the tunic fall to the ground, and indicating for the guards to release them.
Dr. Frasier opened her mouth but Sam just shot her a look before stepping towards Kar-Daniel and pushing him back.
'What is wrong this time?' She looked from one to the other, albeit more awkwardly for the other as opposed to the one.
Daniel just sighed and looked at her in resignation and the Colonel was looking to a point to her immediate left.
'No idea. I just couldn't stop myself. I'm sorry Jonah. Jack. Damnit.'
'I'm assuming mood swings are a part of the process.' Janet looked at all three of them critically and stared at Sam expectantly.
She just shrugged, complete at a loss as to what this woman was expecting from her, Daniel was clearly struggling to control his anger at Jonah, even if he didn't exist. Sam just turned and walked back to her bed and curling away from them and trying to think of anything other than then world she had just been shunted back into.
Sam stood by the observation window and looked down at the stargate curiously, watching as a few people worked around it. She felt movement next to her and saw Daniel follow her line of sight and fiddle with his glasses unsure of his movements.
'You look more like yourself.' She commented with a casualness that belayed her true feelings. Her world had not yet slipped back into focus. She was watching pieces of her life trying to force themselves back into their right place, but Thera was getting in the way. At the moment it was like she was watching two blurred movies and trying to figure out which was the one she had planned to see.
'Wish I felt like it.' With that, he rested his left arm on the glass above his head and rested his head on it, still staring down at the gate room.
'You can look at yourself and differentiate him from the real you, I just see her.' She whispered hollowly staring at Thera's reflection. Sam had hair that curled under her ears and Thera had short choppy hair that was unruly at times.
'I didn't think of it like that.' Daniel tilted his head slightly to take a good look at her as he spoke. Sam avoided the sympathetic look that she knew that he was aiming her way.
'It's more than a tad disconcerting, let me tell you.'
'I can imagine.'
'You're one of the few.'
Sam turned away from the not so mirror image facing her and looked around the room.
'Has the briefing table always been so ugly?' She asked tilting her head and frowning at the large centrepiece of the room. Daniel turned and stared at the object in question, leaning forward and squinting at it.
'I believe so.'
'Strange what it takes too see some things in the real light of day.' Sam sat down on one of the seats and flattened her hands on the highly polished wood.
'And I'm not supposed to be reading too much into that particular comment.' Daniel sat in the chair to her right and began swinging back and forth on it.
'It'd be best for both of us if you don't.'
'Yes, but the ever growing "Daniel" part of me is begging me too.' He looked at her, eyebrows raised and blinking with mock innocence.
'Well of course it is, but that part of you should also know that doing that can't be good for you.' At this, Daniel nodded slowly before shrugging slightly.
'Yeah, but the worst thing that could happen would be my untimely death. But I do believe, if memory serves, even that hasn't stopped me in the past.'
'Death? Really? You'd think I'd be that obvious?'
At this Daniel frowned, looking slightly worried as Sam smirked at him enjoying the growing fear in her friend.
'Why are the vast majority of my friends either geniuses or incredibly devious or both?' He groaned, flopping back in the chair staring at the ceiling.
'Because that's interesting?' She tried shrugging and watching him in amusement. Daniel stared back at her with a world weary expression and sighed.
'Does it feel like home here?' He mused spinning around and looking at General Hammond working in his office.
'There's no place like it... If I knew what it was.'
They both sat there dazed and confused and more than a smidge melancholic.
'I feel like everything here is extremely important, I just don't know it. Yet. Thera's feelings are superimposing Sam's. At the moment it's like I'm both women or neither of them. I just can't differentiate who's feeling what.'
'Or who you are as a result.' Daniel nodded sympathetically and sighed once more.
'As awful as it is, I'm glad I'm not alone in the befuddlement.' Sam stood up and stared out at the gate again, seeing Jon- Colonel O'Neill standing in front of the ramp.
Daniel stood up to see what she was staring at and she shot him a look before he could aim her with what could only be a pitying look.
Neither Thera or Sam needed that. Though the dawning realization that Thera had a lot more going on in her life than Sam had in similar aspects was heart wrenchingly painful.
And that little glimpse that Thera had gleaned was torturous for Sam, Jonah was a side to the Colonel that she had wished she'd never seen.
Especially now that he was staring up at her with an expression that she'd only seen in Jonah, or in that room and behind that force shield.
Daniel apparently could read her thoughts as he wrapped an arm around her and pressed a gentle kiss to her hair.
'It'll get easier.'
'I'm not so sure about that.'
'Well I am. You and Jack... You'll work it out, until...' Sam pulled back and looked at him, shaking her head and walked away, not wanting to hear him finish.
Sam/Thera just wasn't ready to face that.
Daniel may be back to his old self, but she wasn't so sure about herself.
But she'd get there, with his help.
Turns out I'm having a total brain meltdown at the moment, which surprisingly is good for my writing.
Not so good for my education but I digress.
Enjoy and please review if you can... it doesn't take much, that little box is calling to you...
Ha! Thanks!