Chapter Three: Carter's Dilemma

Samantha Carter felt conflicted.

It was not an unusual emotion for her and as usual she attempted to suffer through it without bringing any more people than necessary in on her anxiety. It wasn't that she didn't like Narim – she did, he was engaging and sophisticated – but his constant fawning on her, even as it flattered, made her uncomfortable.

Ever since Tanith's attack on Tollana, she'd sort of written him out of the mental equation as a possible suitor – and strangely, that had made him more attractive. She'd started to idealize qualities in him and unconsciously begun to compare prospective boyfriends with his impossible standard … a standard only a handful of men in the universe could probably measure up to, and Sam wasn't even sure Narim himself was one of them.

It hadn't been a problem when he'd been missing presumed dead; it was amazing the perfect relationships you could conjure for yourself out of the ether when they were with people who were supposed to be dead.

Sam considered herself a pretty independent creature and it had been useful to pull out the image of the impossible to compare the possibilities to in order to dissuade herself from making a change. Her work was her life and it was very important work; complicating things with a romantic relationship would be a mistake and she knew it well.

She couldn't deny that there were attractions here and there, people she cared about more than she should or emotional instabilities that might have proved catastrophic to her career if she'd given them more than a passing thought … and there had even been times when she'd been close to swept off her feet through the power of devotion, but even those hadn't worked out.

So she'd resigned herself to being a single, independent creature, devoted herself to her work, and spent her off-duty time kicking it with the boys or with Janet, and simply didn't worry about the rest … and it had been a lot of fun and she was almost sorry to have romantic concerns cropping up in her life again.

So now the standard by which she had judged so many men and used to keep herself from getting too interested in them … was sleeping off interstellar jet-lag in some unoccupied quarters elsewhere in the mountain, and she was sitting here reading a report from another gate team without actually absorbing any of the actual information.

"Damn," Sam said, leaning back in her chair.

"Something on your mind?" Daniel Jackson asked without looking away from his computer. He was doing a complex data analysis on some shavings from an archaeological dig somewhere unearthly and had needed to borrow one of the lab's microscopes and computer software.

Sam sighed. "No, just … I just read an entire paragraph without actually reading it," she said.

"I hate when I do that," Daniel replied. "Generally the solution involves … a lot of caffeine."

She rubbed at her eyes. "I was supposed to have this analysis finished an hour ago," she said.

He turned in his chair slightly, giving her a wry grin. "Want to trade?"

Sam had to laugh. "I'm afraid that you're a *little* out of my specialty, Daniel."

"Suit yourself," Daniel said, turning back to his computer screen.

"How long has he been asleep?" Sam wondered aloud, glancing toward the laboratory door as though she was expecting Narim to turn up at any minute.

"About three hours, I think," Daniel said vaguely, not really paying attention.

"He's been through a tough time, I guess," Sam said, looking back down at the water analysis report she was supposed to be working on.

"Yeah," Daniel said, typing hurriedly.

"I just don't know," Sam said. "I mean, I'm glad he's alive and everything and I'm certain that whatever knowledge of Tollan technology he feels he can share with us now that he doesn't have to worry about betraying his own people will be more than useful, but … at the same time it's a little weird, do you know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Daniel said, scooting the chair backwards across the lab to take another slide from the box and then sliding back over to the microscope.

"Because ever since the first time the Tollan came through the Stargate, he's made no secret of his feelings for me, and it's not that I don't like him but there's no way that I'm ready to commit to the sort of deep long-term relationship," Sam said. "And the really creepy thing is the fact that I don't think he ever even expects anything from me, it's just that he happens to be desperately in love with me, it's really unnerving."

"Yeah," Daniel said, peering intently into the microscope. "Wait a minute, what does that even mean … there shouldn't be that kind of residue here, not unless there was an abrupt ice age or something … sorry, Sam, I'm listening, really."

Sam fought back a laugh. If she thought he was listening, she probably wouldn't even have been talking. "And I mean, he's so very devoted," she said. "Obsessive, is more like it. I keep picking up these men from all over the galaxy who are just natural stalkers. I mean, he programmed his computer to talk to him with my voice for God's sake … and I'm, well, I'm flattered – really flattered – but I keep feeling that I should be really creeped out by this …"

"Yeah," Daniel said, swiveling away from the microscope to type something else into the computer. "Of course you can't just make an ice age out of nothing to explain an anomalous residue … probably someone spilled their frappucino on the slides or something, sometimes I don't know where we get these people, does Stargate Command advertise internships? … uh, sorry, Carter, what were you saying?"

Sam smiled happily. There was no one better to go to with your problems than a distracted Daniel Jackson – because for all his well-meaning positive energy you could be assured that he wasn't really listening to anything you were saying even as he made all the sympathetic noises that he was capable of multitasking enough to make. "Thanks, Daniel," she said. "You've been a big help."

"Er," Daniel said, looking up from his computer screen with a thoroughly mystified expression on his boyish face, "you're … welcome."

"I'm going to go get a Diet Coke," Sam said. "Do you want anything?"

Daniel apparently relaxed. This was much more familiar territory for him than apparently random affirmations of aid he had no memory of actually giving. "You could get me some more coffee," he said.

"Sure," said Sam.

It felt a little better to get things off her chest, even to someone who was little better than talking to the open air. She'd see what Narim wanted when he was awake – whether he expected anything from her, or whether he would be satisfied to continue their strange non-dating state that had been apparently been in effect the last time they'd met.

Generally, despite his obsession-level devotion to her, he had been good about making his feelings known without exerting undo pressure on her to commit herself in the past … hopefully, that level of emotional patience had not been traumatized out of him by his recent tough experiences.