Ch 4 – Giv'n unsought

Three days later, Sam Carter was feeling like she must be on the end of some evil Goa'uld mind game or something. Every time she fell asleep, she kept having different dreams all with one disturbingly common factor: she and her CO always ended up in a passionate lip lock at the end. It had never gone any further than that, but she wasn't quite sure whether that was due to the fact that she had started trying to wake herself up from the dreams or not.

She was avoiding him as much as possible at work, but that wasn't saying much. He was just... always around on base. She was finding it harder and harder to look him in the eye, and becoming more and more frustrated with her subconscious or whoever was to blame for the dreams.

Sure, she'd admitted to herself a long time ago that there were some feelings, or at least the potential for feelings, that she had for her CO that General Hammond would not have been thrilled to hear about, but she had logically done the good soldier bit and kept them shoved into the deepest, darkest, dustiest corner of her mind.

She had never had a very exciting dream-life before either; on the few occasions she remembered her dreams they usually involved complex pieces of alien technology. So she was in unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory now, and she didn't like it one bit.

To avoid the dreams that made her want to avoid her CO, she was trying to sleep as little as possible, filling her time more than usual with work, or independent work if she couldn't find something she was supposed to be doing. She was getting very tired and her patience with herself and the dreams was quickly wearing thin.

All of which went a long way towards explaining why she was sitting in the commissary at two o'clock, staring absently at her lasagna. She didn't even notice when the one person she'd been trying to avoid sat down right across from her with a loud, cheerful greeting.

Colonel O'Neill dug into his own lasagna, waiting for her to return the greeting or at least acknowledge his presence. When she didn't, he looked at her in concern.

"You okay?" he asked. She actually jumped. She never jumped, even if they were being ambushed.

"Sorry, sir," she said quickly, flashing an apologetic smile.

"No problem," he said with a shrug, returning the smile. "I'm sure it's important, whatever it is."

"Sir?" she asked, confused.

"What you're thinking about. Saving the universe again?"

"Not this week, sir," she replied with a slight laugh.

He laughed as well, and watched thoughtfully as her mind instantly wandered again. Either her head was too heavy for her neck today, which wouldn't have really surprised him since it was so full of information and ideas, or she was examining her lasagna for signs of alien life (not necessarily a bad idea), because she went a full five minutes without looking up at him once.

He had noticed, of course, that she had seemed distracted and tired this week, but she often got like that when she had a big project going on. However, when Sam Carter had a big project going on, she was also usually pretty excited, sometimes even downright giddy, about said project.

So it bothered him that she seemed so sullen. Maybe she was sick. They were scheduled to go off-world in two days, to watch Daniel get an archaeological survey under way. If she was sick, she needed to see the doc right away. And if she wasn't sick, maybe Janet could help her with whatever was bothering her, because it was obvious she didn't want to discuss it with him.

When he had eaten his entire lunch and she had done nothing besides poke at hers absently a few times, he set down his fork loudly, which made her look up for the first time in ages. "Thought your neck was broken," he commented, getting up and coming around the table.

"Sir?" she asked, confused about his comment.

"Come on," he said, ignoring the confused and questioning look she was giving him. When she didn't move, he grabbed her arm lightly and said, "Come on, you're going to the infirmary."

That at least sparked some emotion. Her cheeks got red and her eyes got bright and she said, "Sir, with all due respect, I think I would know if I needed to visit the infirmary."

"There's obviously something wrong with you. At the very least you aren't sleeping right, you look exhausted. We've got a mission in two days, I need you healthy. Come on. That's an order," he added in his most serious CO voice, tugging her up out of her seat.

She pulled her arm out of his grip and followed him grumpily to the infirmary, where Janet was busy wrapping an ice pack on Siler's right foot. Apparently he had dropped his giant wrench on himself. For the third time. That month.

"Colonel, what can I... Sam, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Carter insisted pointedly, crossing her arms.

O'Neill ignored her and turned to Janet. "That's what I'd like to know. She hasn't been sleeping or eating and has been living off coffee."

"Well, not that I approve of that lifestyle, but isn't that pretty normal for Sam?" Janet asked lightly, teasing her friend. Colonel O'Neill chuckled. One look at Sam told Janet she wasn't in the mood to be teased.

"All right, well, I'll just do your pre-mission check-up now instead of tomorrow, Sam," she said as she finished with Siler. "Colonel, that's your hint to leave," she added when he didn't move.

"Oh. Right." He smiled at them both. Only Janet returned the smile.

"All right, Sam," she said in a low voice once the Colonel had gone. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, Jan," Sam promised as Janet separated them from Sgt. Siler with the privacy curtain. Janet looked at her pointedly. "I'm serious. I'm perfectly healthy."

"All right, then what's bothering you?" Janet asked, tossing her a pair of scrubs to change into.

"Nothing," she said, knowing Janet wasn't going to buy it. At Janet's look, she sighed. "All right, there is something. It's so stupid though."

"Well, however stupid it may or may not be, it's starting to affect your work, which I know must be driving you crazy."

"Exactly!"

"Want to talk about it?"

"Yeah," Sam admitted, surprised that it was true.

"Not here though."

"Ooh, is it juicy?"

"Not by your standards," Sam said, her mood lightening somewhat.

Janet laughed and said, "All right, why don't you come over for dinner tonight and we'll talk about it then?"

"Thanks, Jan."

"Sure. Might as well get the physical over with now though, since you're in here."

"But..."

"Colonel O'Neill's going to ask me about the results anyway."

"Fine," Sam agreed, sighing overdramatically.

Janet watched her friend in amusement. Whatever was bothering Sam, she definitely was not acting like herself.