Carter wandered down the silent halls of the SGC, headed for Daniel's office. It was really late, or really early depending on how you looked at it, but she still had work to do and was desperate for coffee. Even if her friend had gone home, Sam knew how to operate Daniel's coffee maker and where he kept his stash of snacks.
Rounding the corner into Daniel's office, Sam could hear the unmistakable noise of a coffee grinder. Expecting to see her teammate, Sam stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of the only female member of the social science department. "Oh, hey Ariana. I thought you were Daniel."
Ariana grinned tiredly. "I don't know why you wouldn't. I am in his office. He left a couple of hours ago to take a nap. Are you on a coffee run?"
Sam nodded. "Daniel always keeps a stash of the good stuff here in his office. Did you find it?"
Ariana shook her head, brandishing the coffee grinder. "Nope, brought my own. But I've got enough here to make a full pot. I'll gladly share."
"Thanks, I'd appreciate it."
Carter watched as Ariana went through the ritual of starting the coffee. With quick efficiency Ariana added the coffee grounds and water before flipping the switch that turned the machine on. The women stood in companionable silence, watching the coffee trickle into the carafe.
Without looking at her companion, Ariana said, "If you're hungry, I've got some goodies in my office. It's just a couple of doors down."
Sam shrugged. "Sounds good to me. I need to take a break anyway."
"What are you working on?" Ariana asked.
"I'm reviewing proposals from the scientific staff. There are several projects on deck that would require my direct involvement, and I'm trying to rank them in order of importance and fit them into my schedule. Fun, huh?"
"Oh, sure. I've been working on the footage from P3X-987 that Daniel brought back with him. He was helping me - or should I say distracting me - so I told him to go get some rest before I surrendered to the urge to smack him."
Sam giggled.
After pouring their coffee, the women made their way to Ariana's office. The ethnobotanist went to a small refrigerator behind her desk and opened it saying, "What would you like, Sam? I've got some cookies and stuff, but my mom sent me this chocolate cheesecake that I really need some help with."
Sam's head popped up. "Homemade chocolate cheesecake?"
Ariana grinned. "Mom sent it as a reward for my new job. The only problem is that it's my favorite dessert and the damn woman knows it. I could eat the whole thing by myself – though I probably shouldn't. Want some?"
Carter nodded enthusiastically and Ariana began digging in a cabinet for paper plates and plastic ware. While the other woman was dishing up cheesecake, Carter looked around with interest, noting the differences between this office and the one they'd just left. Ariana's worktable was just as cluttered as Daniel's usually was, but that was where the similarities ended. The rest of the room was supremely neat.
Sam noticed that the bookcase behind the ethnobotanist's desk contained almost as many photographs as it did books and artifacts. She wandered over to take a look at them. There were several pictures of an older couple that Sam assumed were Ariana's parents. One photo caught her attention and she picked it up to study it more closely. It showed a much younger Ariana laughing up at a handsome man smiling down at her. There was obvious affection between the two and they made a rather striking couple.
Ariana came up next to her, plate in hand. She smiled sadly down at the picture Carter held. "That's Gareth, my husband. This was the last picture taken of us before he was killed."
Sam put the picture back and accepted the plate from Ariana. "I'm sorry."
Ariana shrugged. "So am I, but that's okay. It doesn't bother me to talk about him anymore. We were happy and I wouldn't have traded the four years I had with him for anything."
"How did you meet him?"
Ariana smiled at the memory. "Gareth was a field geologist who worked for my father at BP. I thought he was wonderful, even though he was almost twelve years older than I was. When I was fifteen I told him in a rather dramatic fashion that, if he'd wait for me to finish high school, I'd marry him. We did just that, the week after I graduated."
Sam returned the smile, remembering what it had felt like to be young and in love for the first time. "Your parents didn't have any problem with the age difference?" she asked.
Ariana shook her head. "Nope - 'May/December' relationships run in the family – there's ten years difference in my parents' ages. Besides, once I had my mind set on something they knew that it would be almost impossible for them to change it."
Ariana picked up another frame, handing it to Sam. "Here's one you might be more interested in."
"It's you and Daniel! Wow, you both look so young."
Laughing, Ariana said, "That's because we were. That picture isalmost ten years old."
"Where was this taken? It's beautiful."
Ariana leaned on the corner of her desk. "That was the summer that Daniel and I met. He had taken a couple of his students on a day trip to see the Temple of Kukulcan at Tulum, and invited me to tag along. They were working on a dig at Uxmal, another Mayan site not far from Tulum. I was doing graduate work in the same area; studying curanderismo and midwifery with the modern peoples in the area."
Sam sat on the vacant chair at the worktable. "He mentioned that you'd met in the Yucatan."
Ariana nodded. "That was a fun summer. Daniel kept getting himself into trouble. One time, he had to play midwife to his landlady when a storm kept the doctor from being able to reach the house where Daniel was living. That was when he had me introduce him to some of the local midwives. After liberal doses of the famous Jackson charm, he was actually allowed to attend several births – something that's normally considered taboo for men. I swear that man could charm the wings off an angel."
Sam giggled. "It's those big blue eyes – gets them every time. You know, Daniel still finds himself in situations like that. We visited a planet called Argos several years ago, and he ended up having to deliver a baby inside a Greek temple."
"Typical," Ariana rolled her eyes. "Probably the funniest thing I remember from that summer is the time that Daniel got chased through the village by a rather belligerent billy goat. I've never seen anyone climb a tree so fast! Everyone was laughing so hard, it took half an hour before someone removed the goat so that Daniel could climb back down. That's how he got his nickname, you know. The villagers said that he was as 'fast as a monkey' to have gotten up the tree so quickly." Both women dissolved in helpless giggles at the mental images the story provoked.
Still giggling, Sam said, "That's what makes the colonel's nickname for him even funnier - Daniel hates it."
"Space Monkey? Like... as in... 'Curious George' Space Monkey? It has to be that or the monkey from Space Ghost."
Sam nodded. "The colonel's never really said one way or the other. What's worse is that Daniel has never made either connection. He just keeps asking the colonel to explain it."
This revelation, combined with the lateness of the hour, caused them both to erupt in gales of laughter. Just then a tousled blond head and dazed blue eyes made an appearance in the office doorway.
"What's so funny?" Daniel asked, quizzically.
His only response was increased hilarity and he turned towards his office in disgust muttering, "Women!"
