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An Unnatural Scent – Chapter 26

Samantha Carter sighed. The planet with Loki's lab was in the far reaches of the Milky Way galaxy. This trip was only supposed to take a couple of days but her team was driving her nuts. She took another look at her male companions who were gathered together around 'Oz' who was giving Cam a guitar lesson. She shook her head at the thought of giving a musician access to space travel. She didn't mind Dr. Walker, she had been a desired member for SGC after all, getting access to aliens, but a musician? And perhaps she didn't understand men as well as she thought she did because the others were watching Cam's lesson with glee. Jack was in his element, giving Cam a hard time about how good he was becoming. Daniel appeared to just want to listen while reading one of his new tomes, taking notes. While Teal'c seemed intrigued by the whole thing. It was almost enough for her to wish Vala hadn't decided that the lack of personal reward was a good reason not to come with them.

Sam hadn't stuck around long once Dr. Walker began talking with Thor either. Dr. Walker and Thor had apparently bonded. Her questions and insights into genetics and cloning had quickly eclipsed Sam's knowledge on the subjects. The way Thor was blinking made her suspect that Dr. Walker's thoughts were quite brilliant.

Deciding to look around the ship some more she saw Buffy standing on the bridge, looking at the stars outside.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" Sam whispered as she came to stand next to Buffy. Buffy turned slightly to look at Sam with a half-smile. "I sometimes forget how beautiful it is."

"It can be hard to see the beauty in what you take for granted," Buffy replied before turning back to look at the stars. "I never imagine traveling through space or going to the stars. My childhood dreams were of things like being an Olympic figure skater."

"But that's not what you decided to become."

Buffy laughed. She was fully aware of how much not knowing what she did was frustrating the good doctor, but the completely unsubtle lead in to what she does startled her. It was this transparency that made her decide to answer at all.

"My dreams became nightmares that I couldn't escape. It took me a long time to embrace my calling. What I do has meaning and value and it's what made it easy for me to accept aliens are real. You're someone who is into the hard sciences so what I do isn't something you'll accept easily. You can probably tell that the General has accepted it even though it obviously makes him uncomfortable. If I thought you needed to know what I do I'd tell you, and I think you know your General well enough that he'd tell you if you needed to know."

Sam let out a soft huffy sigh, "It's the only reason I haven't gone crazy trying to find out. But Dr. Erin Hunter is in the hard sciences and she works for you."

"Erin was forced into this like I was. What we do affects her life so completely that she has to accept it. And can I just say, I love that you didn't even deny that he'd tell you what he knows of us," Buffy said giggling.

"You've obviously spent a lot of time with General O'Neill."

"He was in on all the negotiations with my people. He's very different from the other government officials I've dealt with."

"He is one of a kind," Sam agreed.

Buffy turned to look at the doorway onto the bridge.

"What?" Sam asked seeing the expectant look on Buffy's face.

"I kind of expected him to walk in on us while we were talking about him."

Sam laughed. It had been a long time since she'd spoken to another woman like this. Most of the people she interacted with were scientists. Only a few of them were women, more women really need to go into the sciences. There were some enlisted women but she rarely interacted with them. Although she counted Dr. Lam as a friend, not just a colleague, she rarely had non-professional chats with her like she had had with Janet. And trying to discuss anything with Vala always ended with her talking about Daniel in a way Sam wasn't comfortable with or on the value of things which Sam wasn't a fan of either.

"What are you going to do if we find your friend?"

"Hug him and take him home, assuming he wants to."

"You don't think he'd want to go back to Earth?"

"I can't imagine he'd want to stay, but I don't know what he's been doing if he's not in stasis. He might like it out here. I won't force him back even though we want him home. Hopefully Thor will be up to playing taxi driver because we will expect visits and updates."

Sam blinked taking it in, "That's a surprising point of view."

"He did something similar to me once. I was the happiest I'd ever been, but he thought I was the unhappiest, and helped force me back home. It took me a long time to forgive him and my other friends."

"Ah," Same said simply. She could hear the pain in Buffy's voice and didn't know how to respond.

"I'm in a better place now. One day I'll retire and be there again. In the meantime there are a lot of things I want to experience."

"Oh?"

"My boyfriend and I are discussing the possibility of becoming parents. We both got separated from our normal routine to look for Xander and realized we might be able to do our jobs in enough safety that children, something neither of us ever thought were possible, were possible."

Both of them were surprised at how open Buffy was being. Buffy hadn't really discussed this with anyone but Spike. Telling it to someone she barely knew made it so much more real and she really really liked how it made her feel. The possibility had been in the back of her mind since she'd found out about Xander's 'donation' but not something she'd spoken to Spike about until after they'd gone to Area 51.

Spike had been flummoxed by the idea because he had never thought of parenthood for himself. Not since he'd become a vampire anyway. He'd long given up the idea. Of course he'd been in a relationship with Drusilla forever, and she enjoyed going to orphanages and killing all the children. Adopting with her would not have been possible. He would never know when she'd snap and try to eat or kill the kid. So he was open to the chance now. If they found someplace safe enough where rogue demons and vampires wouldn't be able to seek them out they just might be able to do it.

End Chapter 26

The next chapter is Loki's lab! It only took 26 chapters and almost 9 years to reach it. I hope my writing has improved a lot in the time and distance. I'm still practicing my calligraphy. Ran out of ink in the middle of this and had to use a regular pen. Wrote this whole thing on paper and then on the computer while at work, it's so slow on Sundays, especially because of the holidays and the weather.

I just got complimented on how fast I am by a customer~~