Any other day, Sam wouldn't have watched this movie to prevent a million Jaffa from storming the SGC. She was too old to be getting wrapped up in teen romance movies. Today, however, one held an odd appeal.
The supporting characters were superficial and over the top. The main characters were stereotypes, and the entire plot was obvious from the first second she turned it on, but she kept watching, unable to bring herself to change the channel or just shut the damned thing off. She had to admit -- it was at least better than some Cassie had forced her to watch. She could barely stomach those where some stereotypical jock guy suddenly falls for the 'surprisingly gorgeous' geek girl, and all in the course of a week, they supposedly fall happily in love.
She couldn't help but notice that those movies always ended shortly after the kiss. They never showed the heart-wrenching breakup when the couple realized there was no substance behind what they'd thought was true, undying love. This movie was likely to end with the same cheesy kiss, but at least the main characters' love had a basis. They'd been friends since childhood. They knew each other better than they even knew themselves. The love between them was actually believable . . . even though they were still naive teenyboppers.
Just as she had predicted, the new couple kissed at the end as they realized their love. That was the same instant Sam launched the first thing she could grab at her TV. Luckily for the TV, it was only one of her sofa pillows.
"Real life doesn't work that way," she muttered. She felt sorry for all the young girls who bought into that kind of garbage. She also felt sorry for herself because she'd never experienced it.
She had Pete, of course, a wonderful man and the closest she'd ever gotten to the elusive fairy tale prince that she'd stopped searching for decades ago. Not a perfect man, but one she'd come to love. She just wasn't sure of how strongly she felt that love. If she was truly honest with herself, it wasn't perfect and undying. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she didn't want to marry him. That made her question if it was really him who was the problem or simply her own sheer terror at the thought of a commitment and everything that came with it. She had, after all, already backed out of one engagement. The problem could be entirely on her end.
She knew of another possible reason, quite probably her main obstacle to happiness. For years, the center of her attention had been Jack O'Neill. Seeing him was her reason for waking up every morning. He was the man she wanted to sweep her off her feet. Yet, before she met Pete, she'd realized that Jack was just a tool she used to protect herself from a real relationship. Now she wasn't so sure about that.
Every time she looked at her ring, she thought of Jack instead of her fiancé. It shouldn't be that way if she were over him, if there were no real feelings there. Jack wouldn't let her talk about them, though. Whether it was for his benefit or hers, she couldn't tell. Maybe he didn't feel anything for her. Maybe he knew her better than she knew herself, and he realized that what she felt wasn't true love after all. It sure felt like it to her, though.
Then there was Daniel. He'd been newly hurled onto the pile labeled 'Sam Carter's Men Problems' when she'd thrown herself at him a few days ago. Since that night, she hadn't even been able look him in the eye, and she'd completely avoided looking at him as best she could. She had no explanation for it. Their friendship should have been fine, and she shouldn't have felt so uncomfortable around him. Daniel had done his best to see to that.
'Should haves' and logic aside, though, she got a knot in her stomach whenever he entered the room. At the debriefing earlier that day, their eyes had met, and her face had instantly felt like it'd burst into a ball of flames. She knew she was just compounding her problems by avoiding Daniel, but something didn't feel right between them. Instead of the usual comfort and ease, there was an unnerving tension. Not only that, but she couldn't manage to shake the memory of him caressing her body, licking her skin.
She had a dreadful feeling she had damaged their friendship irreparably. To make matters worse, it was all on her end. He didn't seem to be having the same problems. They'd agreed not to let the incident come between them, but she wasn't living up to the agreement.
He, on the other hand, seemed to be making every attempt to return their relationship to normal. The last couple days he'd casually come to visit her as usual. She'd avoided him, and he'd noticed. He'd tried to talk about it, and she'd given him some lame excuse for why she didn't have the time. He'd even called last night, but she hadn't answered, and she hadn't called back.
Luckily, it was now Friday night and she didn't have to see Daniel for days, likewise with Jack and Pete. She had a whole weekend to set everything straight in her head. Her messed up love life and friendships were the last thing she wanted to think about, but the one thing she knew she had to.
She turned off the TV. It wasn't helping. It was just distracting and a bit irritating.
For the hundredth time that week, she stared at her engagement ring. It was quite beautiful, exactly what she would picture as the perfect ring. And Pete was pretty damned close to her picture of the perfect man. He was caring, handsome, sweet, and always there for her. So what was the problem?
She wished she could call Janet. She could hardly believe it had been over a year since her death. At times like these, she missed her the most. She missed having another woman to talk to, especially someone like Janet, who always knew the right thing to say, the right thing to do and seemed to be a fountain of knowledge on men and relationships.
But now Sam had to face the fact that Janet wasn't there, and she had screwed up, so she couldn't talk to Daniel either. Talking to Jack for advice was completely out of the question and would be incredibly uncomfortable. It had always turned out that way when she'd tried to talk to him in the past. There was no reason she should expect otherwise this time. Of course, there was always Teal'c, but something just seemed absurd about going to Teal'c for relationship advice. Granted, being over one hundred years old, he probably had more experience with relationships than any of them, but she couldn't bring herself to confess to the Jaffa warrior how badly she'd screwed up her love life. It simply seemed too trivial to bring to his attention.
This meant she was on her own for some serious soul searching. She glanced around her empty living room. How exactly does one begin soul searching? she wondered. One possibility was to knock herself unconscious and hope for some enlightening visions like she'd had when she woke up on the Prometheus. Probably not the best course of action.
Maybe word association. It was something one of her undergrad psychology professors had once suggested as a method to get to the truth of what you feel. She couldn't think of any better way, so she decided it was worth a try.
She went to her desk for a pen and paper then settled back on the sofa. 'Love,' she wrote at the top of the page. Jack, was the first thought that came to mind. She didn't write it. That wasn't exactly the point of the exercise.
Love. She underlined the word. Love. What the hell is love? She underlined it once more and sighed. It's not that difficult. Love is. . .
She wrote 'happiness' on the page. She hadn't been experiencing much of that this past week. She thought of the times she was the happiest. They were those simple times like when she went for a walk in the park with Pete, went out for coffee with Daniel, or when all of her friends had gotten together to throw Teal'c a house warming party.
'Laughter,' she wrote next. There had certainly been plenty of laughter that weekend. Teal'c had been on Earth for quite some time, but most of what he knew about life outside the base he'd learned from TV. Knowing this, Jack and Daniel had tried to convince him that one of the rituals involved in getting your first apartment was running naked through the hallways. Of course, Sam knew neither of them actually thought Teal'c would believe them, but that didn't stop them from one-upping each other in their attempts to make their story believable. Daniel had even gone to the extent of describing the cultural significance behind the act. The best part had been when Teal'c shut them up by describing the ritual involved on Chulak when one discovers that his friends are deceiving him.
There had also been a bit of drinking involved that night. True to form, Daniel waxed philosophical once he'd had a few. She couldn't think of anything more entertaining than a slightly tipsy Daniel. It made her smile just thinking about it.
'Smile,' she wrote. Daniel's smile flashed through her mind. Not that woman-melting smile, but the soft, tender smile that he had just for her. She often saw it when they were joking with each other, teasing each other. Lately, some people might even consider it flirting.
'Daniel'. She stared at the page, unwilling to believe what she'd just written three lines below the word 'Love'. Well this was pointless. She crumpled the paper and tossed it over her shoulder, not even bothering to aim for the trash can. "I never liked that psychology professor anyway," she mumbled.