This chapter is the same as More Than You: Chapter 33 and sets up Heroes.
It was becoming far too much of a regular occurrence that Nicola found herself sitting at her desk and not working. Things used to be so different and now she feared that too many things had changed. During her Academy days, Nicola had decided who she was and how she was going to be and ever since that point, Nicola had not changed. Ever since one of her earliest postings, Nicola had maintained a distance from other military personnel – whether of equal, greater or lesser rank. Joining Stargate Command and SG-1 had been her undoing, she recognised that now. She had viewed Daniel as something different and she never should have. That had been her first mistake – allowing herself to form a friendship with the archaeologist. Ever since then, things had become more and more tangled.
Laughing ruefully at herself, Nicola knew that it had nothing to do with her friendship with Daniel. Everything had changed the moment that she had taken her final breath, ready for the death that would come. She had been ready for the peace it would hold. It was ironic that it was since that moment that her friendship with Daniel had almost vanished in his other obsessions and she had become more and more friendly with others from the base. Her final breath had been her downfall and now Nicola actually felt dependent on people, she actually craved the comforting words of people from work and it distracted her just as much as the fears of Anubis and Osiris did.
Breaking her distracted train of thought by breezing into the shared lab, Daniel smiled at her as he dropped a load of files onto his own desk. Before she could even think of smiling back Daniel had begun to leaf through the folders and speaking at ten to the dozen. Maybe everything would have been different had Daniel not become so consumed with Sarah and healing her, and maybe that was why Nicola felt so angry and upset about it because through his desire to help Sarah, Daniel had missed the pain that Nicola had been trying to deal with.
She was still trying to deal with the pain and the changes.
"What do you think about the proposal?" The silence came from out of the blue and Nicola blinked at Daniel, realising that the silence was aimed at her.
"Sorry?"
"The proposal of the film crew coming to interview everyone. What do you think about it?"
"Now you want my opinion on something?" Nicola grumbled pettily, mainly because she really did not care about a film crew that she was going to do her utmost to avoid at all costs, but also because she had been lost in her own self-pitying thoughts before his arrival.
"They're going to want to interview everyone." Daniel commented as if he had barely heard her words let alone her snippy tone.
"Uh huh."
"I still think it'd be better to be off world and avoid the whole thing." As per normal, Daniel was too wrapped up in his own thoughts, making him oblivious to anyone else. "SG-11 are off world at the moment, aren't they?"
Looking back up from the blurred paperwork in front of her, Nicola's rapidly blinking eyes met his again. "Yeah, umm, yeah, I think they are." There was no think about it. Nicola knew that the team were off world because she was now a regular visitor of the bar that the other members of Stargate Command frequented. There was a routine involved whenever a team was heading off world and on their return, it had all become part of Nicola's new dependency.
"You and Major Lorne seem quite friendly."
"Sorry?" The last time anyone had enquired about her friendship, Nicola had blushed, but this time she did not.
"I've noticed you spending a lot of time with him. With everyone actually." They continued looking at each other in silence as Nicola wondered what on earth she was supposed to say as there was no actual question. "So, how about the film crew then?" Putting down her paperwork, Nicola abandoned any chance of getting some work done and instead tried to have a conversation with her long lost friend.