Spoilers: Season 4-ish.
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 is an original MGM, Greenburg/Anderson, Gekko, Top Secret, Kawoosh! production. Any material relating to Stargate SG-1 is for entertainment only, and is in no way meant as an infringement on copyrights. In other words, I own nadda.
*
*
*
Well, the Monday morning briefing was certainly.... an experience. For all their talk about keeping things quiet, the pact they'd sworn over the table to not let anyone find out about the photos and what they'd seen Hammond.... wearing, it was pretty obvious just by looking around that something was up.
Janet glanced around the table, finally settling her eyes on Sam and frowning in concern.
Blushing fiery red, Sam looked down at the table and intently scribbled on her pad. She knew the Colonel was also not looking up from the pad he was doodling on, just as she knew Daniel was staring fixedly at the wall, barely blinking. Every time the general said something, his shoulders tensed. It wasn't what he was wearing, Daniel had explained late on Saturday night. He was fine with that, no matter quite how shocking it had seemed at first. Freedom of expression, just a bit of fun, and all that. The problem was with his imagination, which was avid. You couldn't get by without one in the career he had chosen, he'd pointed out. And he just knew that if he looked at Hammond so soon after the.... incident.... he would lose it completely.
Dammit, Daniel had complained, he liked and respected General Hammond. He didn't want to hurt the man's feelings.
'' Dr Jackson? Have you anything to add?''
Daniel's expression took on that of a startled rabbit facing oncoming headlights.
Jack, sitting opposite him, got the full Daniel effect. He started coughing suddenly, slapping himself on the chest as he smothered his laughter in a fit of realistic choking. '' Sorry - God, must have choked on some water.''
Hammond and Janet looked at the empty cup in front of him, then at each other, both of them equally perturbed.
The General seemed to have had enough of this childishness. '' SG-1, is something wrong? Did something happen at the weekend that I've not been made aware of?''
If anything, Sam blushed further, clenching her teeth together, knowing that she and Colonel O'Neill had something else they had to keep from the general. This 'something' being a matter they hadn't said a word about after they'd lip-locked so frantically at the party on Saturday night. In fact, not only was Sam avoiding General Hammond's eyes, but she was also avoiding Colonel O'Neill's. At least for the time being.
'' Nothing, General. Nothing,'' Daniel said, firmly staring at the woodwork of the table, eyes blinking furiously now. He took off his glasses and slowly placed them on his clean, white notepad and finally looked up at General Hammond. No doubt the blurring relieved him of actually reliving the photographs they'd seen on Saturday night. He smiled faintly. '' I have nothing to add. The mission sounds fine and spanky, I mean, DANDY. Dandy, that's what I mean.'' Flushing bright red, Daniel lowered his head to the table and thumped his forehead once.
With horror, Sam realised her eyes were tearing up because she was trying so hard not to laugh. She hadn't felt like this since high school, when just knowing you weren't aloud to laugh made the situation even more amusing.
'' Major... Sam, are you all right?'' Janet asked softly, leaning across the table to try and look at Sam's face.
'' I'm fine, Janet. Just... fine. Something... in my eye.'' Rapidly, Sam stood up and turned to walk to a side table where she could pluck several tissues from the box and dab at her streaming eyes. With her back to the room, Sam allowed herself a broad grin. Spanky. Oh God, that was classic. Davis was going to die when she told him that.
'' Right.'' General Hammond's voice was considerably less friendly than it had been at the start of the meeting. '' Fine. SG-1, your next mission briefing will be Wednesday at 0900. I expect to see you there, on time, and in a considerably more sensible mood.''
'' Yes, sir,'' they all murmured, Sam with her back to the room as she bent over the table, ignoring the funny looks she was getting through the glass.
'' Dismissed. Dr Fraiser, if I could see you in my office for a moment...''
'' Certainly, sir.''
The door opened, then closed. For a long, tense moment, there was silence in the briefing room.
Then someone, Sam thought it may have been Daniel, snorted. Swiftly followed by a hysterical hiccup. Sam let out a gurgle of laughter, which soon enough turned into a full-on burst. Colonel O'Neill, shoulders shaking, lowered his head onto his arms and shook harder. Daniel tipped back in his seat, hands spread across his stomach and he laughed hard enough to have tears running down his face.
It all became too much for Teal'c, who had not missed SG-1's uncharacteristic silence throughout the briefing, and his dark eyes swept the room with disapproval before he announced, '' I do not see what is so amusing. I do, however, wish to see what is so amusing, if one of you would explain it to me.''
Weakly, Sam slid down onto the rough-carpeted floor of the briefing room, still laughing, the images from the night before last playing through her mind. '' Spanky! Oh, Daniel,'' she blurted, laughing still harder. It was hardly mature of them, her conscience pointed out smugly. She was thirty-two years old, Teal'c was over a hundred, Daniel was thirty-three and Colonel O'Neill was... Hmm, now why didn't she know that? Ah yes, the biggest mystery of the SGC - Colonel O'Neill's age. Whatever it was, they were acting like pre-schoolers.
But, heh, it was fun anyway.
Colonel O'Neill lifted his head. '' Classic, Danny, God, that was classic.'' He rubbed his hands over his face. '' Man.''
Daniel sniffed. '' I couldn't believe it. I was trying so hard not to slip up and... Do you think he realised?''
'' Daniel Jackson, General Hammond was as informed as I was. That is to say, he did not know what to realise.''
'' Teal'c, are you sulking?'' Colonel O'Neill demanded of his friend.
'' I do not sulk, O'Neill. It is you who persist on sulking when things do not go your way.''
Colonel O'Neill's mouth dropped open, but it was Daniel who got in first, '' You are sulking! You are!'' This made Daniel laugh harder. Obviously, he had yet to have his morning cup of coffee.
Enough was enough, Sam decided. Outside, there were people standing clusters discussing what the nutters on SG-1 were doing, rolling about the briefing room in hysterics. With great poise - but with a stupid grin on her face - Sam stood up. '' I'm going to my lab,'' she announced with some pride as her voice remained firm, '' and I'm going to do some work.''
Colonel O'Neill cleared his throat, effortlessly quelling his amusement. '' I'll walk with you. Snap out of it, Danny.''
'' I gotta call Davis,'' Daniel was heard to mutter as Sam left the briefing room.
'' Daniel Jackson, I still do not.....''
Outside, the humorous mood fled, leaving behind the sense of uncertainty between Sam and Colonel O'Neill. They walked side by side, a respectable distance between them. Each time Sam thought up something vaguely appropriate to say, the words left her mouth as soon as she opened it. There just wasn't anything to say. So they'd kissed. And it had been... wonderful. But it had been a spur of the moment thing, fuelled by civvies, darkness and the closeness of the moment. To be honest, she was surprised it hadn't happened before, considering all the times SG-1 had gone out together, all the times Sam and the Colonel had stayed up late and that wonderful, dangerous, tension had slipped between them and wound around their bodies. It had been bound to happen sooner or later it was just that... it couldn't happen again.
Could it?
She supposed that was what she wanted to ask him. But Cheyenne really wasn't the place to do that. It would be like hitting themselves over the head with regulations, as if Sam hadn't done that enough in the last four years.
What she should do, she supposed, was ask to meet up after work somewhere. Somewhere neutral, where they could talk. Not either one of their houses, because that was just leading to disaster. God knew what would happen if she slept with him without discussing the rules.
She stopped. He stopped. He looked at her, eyes cautious, expression carefully controlled.
Sam opened her mouth.
'' Major, Colonel.''
Both of them turned to look at Simmons, fidgeting nervously in front of them.
'' Simmons,'' Colonel O'Neill enunciated, his tone half-threatening, as if he'd known whatever Sam had been about to say was important. '' Problem?''
'' Um, no, sir. It's just... just...''
Sam took pity on him. '' Go see, Daniel, Graham. He did a classic Danny in the briefing room in front of General Hammond.''
The young man winced. '' Was it bad? I had to speak to the General this morning and... it was so hard to keep a straight face.''
'' Join the club, Lieutenant. Major, can I see you in my office at 1500?''
She nodded quickly, eagerly, and hoped she didn't look desperate. '' Sure, sir.''
Simmons glanced back at Colonel O'Neill as he marched off, hands deep in his pockets. He looked at Sam worriedly. '' I didn't, ah, interrupt anything important?''
Sam reached out impulsively and padded him on the shoulder. '' Oh, no, no. Nothing important. No life or death situations, no siree. Nope. Nothin'. Absolutely nadda.''
'' Major, are you okay?''
Not really, Lieutenant Simmons. While I know you have a crush on me, according to Daniel anyways, I'd like to point out that I have a major crush on Colonel O'Neill, my commanding officer, and am currently considering burning the book of regulations in order to satisfy that crush. '' I'm fine, Graham. Seriously, you should go see, Daniel.'' She smiled broadly at him and walked off.
Sam's day, not unusually, went very, very slowly. Monday was a day which she saved for paperwork since they rarely had a mission on a Monday and, bizarrely, massive apocalyptic crisis never seemed to occur on Mondays. Perhaps there was a universal agreement on the matter: Never wind SG-1 up on a Monday, could lead to disaster. Sam knew for certain that the Colonel was never at his best on a Monday morning, something he'd once told her came from having double Math every Monday morning for five years. His teachers had deliberately being torturing just because he'd once set fire to the teacher's lounge. Just the once. Oh, and that time when he'd accidentally crashed into the side of the Head of Math's brand new car. Then there was that occasion when...
At this point, Sam had been forced to put an end to his explanation as to why the Math department at his school were out to get him. Not because she wasn't interested - quite the contrary. He rarely talked about his childhood, or his past in general, in fact, and any chance the rest of SG-1 got they would try to coax as much information out of him as possible to share with each other at a later date. But, on this occasion, about twenty-five head-hunting monkeys had just thrown themselves out of the trees and attacked them. They'd taken particular liking to Sam's hair - she seriously considered dying it brown after that mission - and had thought she'd been a nice prize for their... monkey king. Once they'd rid themselves of the little monsters, Colonel O'Neill had insisted on humming 'King of the Swingers' all the way back to the Stargate and Sam had been in no mood to chat for fear of whacking him over the head with her P-90 in an effort to shut up him. He'd thought it was funny. Of course he would. She was forever being kidnapped, stared at, poked out, pulled on, grabbed. No one ever went near him.
Anyway... ooh, nearly three o'clock. She pushed aside the half-eaten sandwich Janet had brought around at lunchtime (a rather unsubtle effort to get Sam to 'fess up and tell her what happened on Saturday night) and hopped off her stool. She leaned out of her doorway, checking that no one was around, and then fished a compact mirror out of a drawer and checked she hadn't got bread crumbs in her eyebrows or something. Nope. There she was. Sam Carter. Blonde, blue-eyed. Was that a freckle...? Damn, she was getting freckly again. Must remember to apply more sun block or she'd break out all over her nose, cheeks and forehead.
Apprehensively, Sam knocked on the door to the Colonel's office, wiped her hands on her trousers and waited for his, ''Come!''. When he did shout, she turned the handle and peered inside.
'' Hey,'' he said softly, looking up from his desk, then standing. '' Come in. Close the door.''
Okay. That was a new one. When they were alone together, they never closed the door. Feeling increasingly nervous, Sam turned, giving herself time to get a grip, and closed the door. Suddenly, the room seemed a whole lot smaller, a whole lot darker, and a whole lot warmer. Resisting the urge to fan herself with her hands, Sam stuck her hands in her pockets, a habit she knew she had definitely picked up from him.
Seemingly just as nervous as she was, the Colonel stood up straighter, stuck his hands in his pockets. He edged slowly around the desk. '' Um, about Saturday night, Carter...''
OhGodohGodohGodohGod.
This sounded like a serious dumping scenario here. She mentally cringed, hoped it didn't show on her face, and waited with as neutral an expression on her face as she could muster.
He'd stalled, then shook his head, struck a more determined pose and came to stand right in front of her. Terribly close, in fact. '' Carter, what I want to say is, the security camera in my office isn't working. Hasn't been since about six this morning. No one has any idea you're in here, alone, with me. Alone. Not being watched. By anyone.'' Colonel O'Neill stared at her pointedly, waiting for her to get the message.
Sam's mouth dropped open. Literally. There were very few occasions in real life when someone's mouth did drop open in shock, and this was one of them. '' Are you...'' Her voice came out too quiet, too squeaky. She cleared her throat. '' Are you... suggesting... what I think you're... suggesting?''
'' Are you saying no?''
'' Noooo....''
'' No? You don't want to? Or, no, you're not saying no?''
'' Um, the last one.''
Slowly, he smiled. And took a step towards her.
Sam took a step back.
Narrowing his eyes, taking on a slightly predatory look, Colonel O'Neill took a step forward.
Smiling, nay, grinning, Sam stepped back. And hit the door with a slight thump.
Jack walked up to stand in front of her, palms going to either side of her head. His smile matched hers, anticipatory, excited, and just a touch nervous. This was different, after all. This was acknowledged.
He edged his mouth over hers so she could feel his breath over her lips, but he didn't touch her not yet, not yet...
This was...
.... wow.
Oh.....
..... wow.
