Samantha Carter has three extra smiles.

I say extra because they were simply added on during the time I was a member of SG-1.

I noticed the six smiles she gave Teal'c and O'Neill, and I'm pretty sure she had three more for Dr. Jackson, only they had been set on waiting wings, hoping that he would return to claim them although at the time it hadn't seemed likely.

She eased me into the team, somehow making the transition more fluid than it actually was. She has a way of doing that, even though she was the one who had grieved the hardest and longest for their lost member.

She guided O'Neill and I, against our knowledge and conscious will, in a haphazard friendship that would have never worked otherwise if she hadn't been there. You would've never guessed in that year thatthe Colonel (I suppose I should be calling him General now) was the leader of our group.Not with the way Samtook the reigns and maneuvered us in our subtle struggles with one another, keeping us precariously balanced while we each selfishly brewed in our own personal thoughts and emotions.

Everything a true leader should have been doing, making us communicate and work as a real team,instead of the unstructuredbaby-sitting toss up that Jack had initiated.

I'm sure she had a few laughs at our expense. We must have seemed about the closest thing to childlike: O'Neill passing me off to be taken care of while he refused to admit the reason behind his silent and hostile behavior towards me and the universe, me getting excited at the tiniest incident and passively building my aggression against him, wanting nothing more than to fight the old man at every turn.

I don't know what Teal'c thought, but it seemed to me that he spent an unusual amount of time with Major…Colonel, Colonel Carter.

I cannot speak first hand of his mannerisms before Dr. Jackson's Ascension, but from what I could make of stray conversations and sided observations among random members of the SGC, it seems that Sam and Teal'c's interaction with one another increased.

I theorized that it must have been because Jack would not open up to her, and I was, for sparse term, and outsider to their established group. And from what I gather of how close Daniel Jackson and her were, I conclude that both of them were looking to fill a void left by his absence.

I also think it's because, in his stoic way, Teal'c was also hurting profusely from his friend's "death" of sorts, and he wanted to make Sam feel better so that she would smile and make him feel better.

Odd, that thought.

But I can see how that would make the most sense…Sam had those smiles that just…brightened your mood.

Like the ones she gave me.

There was her playful smile, where her eyes would widen a bit and her mouth would go up on one end. Then her eyebrows would rise for a short instance with brief suggestiveness. This usually came after I pointed something about certain situations that didn't quite seem to fit, and that seemed erratic to me. It was her advantage for making me nervous about what I didn't understand, hoping at the same time that she would and would not use it against me.

And her knowledgeable smile, in which her mouth would curve softly and humor would pepper her demeanor as she either tried to explain to me a concept I did not grasp, or just kept quiet because she didn't think I needed to know. This response made me confused, but light hearted, because her attitude was dizzyingly fun, leaving me with so much curiosity, wanting to pursue more.

I absently wondered if my smiles had ever belonged to anyone else.

My smiles?

That doesn't sound right, and yet I know it is. She never gave those smiles to anyone else the entire year or so that I was a member of Earth's most valued flagship team.

Maybe for her it's the other way around. Maybe we give her something that elicits those responses reserved specifically for the men of SG-1. What other reason would anyone find to have us deserve those invigorating variations of a smile?

I will have to ask her someday.

There's one more, probably the one I miss the most. It's that megawatt beam that blinds you. That enthusiastic, you're-a-genius-and-I-just-got-an-idea, brilliant breakthrough, full-fledged grin that would appear after I made a discovery, or my comments and illustrative hand gestures on certain projects would give her the edge she'd been looking for.

Though, strangely, I somehow felt that that particular smile hadn't belonged to me alone. I'm not sure what gave me that impression, since no one else had ever received it in my presence.

But as I dabble in hindsight, I realize that I did not feel that way until I saw how she looked at Dr. Jackson when he came back to this plane of existence.

I had a mind to feel slightly jealous, but I realize that Daniel must have had that smile before me. And perhaps it had just been nice for her to be able to use it once he was gone, probably to remind her of him, something that made her happy, even in his wake.

In my whole term on earth I had not found a person more complicated or simple than Samantha Carter. Wearing your emotions on your sleeve does not neccesarily make you an open book, there is much a knotted mees waiting for those who wish to explore the displayed hearts and minds of such a woman. I speak from expierience.

Samantha Carter has three extra smiles, and I miss them terribly.