"Mitchell, we were talking about your love life a moment ago, weren't we? How did we get into dairy products?" Daniel asked.
"Forget dairy products. How did I wind up talking to you about my love life?" Cam replied. Daniel just waited him out. He wasn't sure how it had happened, but Dr. Daniel Jackson had morphed into his own personal Dr. Ruth. Maybe guys boasted about conquests, some guys anyway. He'd been raised that a gentleman didn't do that. On the other hand, guys having touchy feeling conversations about their feelings seemed wrong for a different set of reasons. Despite that, he had gotten into the habit lately with Daniel. The archeologist seemed to find nothing odd about it and was a really intuitive listener, at least until Cam started throwing in back country aphorisms.
"She was talking about how a girl should not put out before marriage because if the guy didn't need to marry her to get her into bed, according to my granny, he'd never walk down the aisle with her," Cam finally explained.
"But, in this case, you feel like you're the cow, right?" Daniel deduced.
"I guess I'm just too much of a good old boy. It makes me squirm. I want to get married and she's allergic to the concept. I gave in and we moved in together a week ago, right, and here I am, providing the whole range of products from skim milk to yogurt. She's all fat and happy and not one bit more receptive to marriage." He hastened to correct himself. "Metaphorically speaking I mean. I don't want to consider what would happen if she thought I said she was fat."
"Which is more painful – being with her like this or being without her -- because those look like the only two choices to me?" Daniel asked him, leaning forward sympathetically.
"I'm not sure I know any more." Cam leaned back and jammed his hands in his pockets. He immediately jumped like there was a tarantula in one of them. "Crap. I've still got her keys in my pocket. She handed them to me for some damn reason when we came in this morning. At least she didn't ask me to carry her purse. I hate that. She's probably calling all over the place trying to find me to get them back."
They both looked over at Daniel's phone and simultaneously noticed that the jack was out of the back. "Why?" Cam asked.
"I was trying to concentrate and it kept ringing."
"How many days ago was that?" Cam asked.
Daniel winced and went on counterattack. "Tell you what, you'd better hot foot it down there with her keys."
Cam went quickly to the infirmary and entered, holding the keys out in front of him like a flag of truce. Carolyn looked up and said, "Thank God. I've been really handicapped without them."
He handed them to her. "How about a thank you?" He meant it to be teasing, but it came out a little belligerent. She'd been hard to live with ever since the weekend and it was wearing on him.
"How about you explain where you've been all morning?"
"Dr. Lam," he said, mindful of the nurse standing by, "let's talk about this in your office." He steered her toward the small room and closed the door.
"Cam, I do not have time to talk. I've lost a lot of ground fooling around over these keys." She tried to reach past him for the knob.
"I'm NOT letting you out of here until you tell me why you've been so annoyed with me lately," he said firmly.
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "As you would say, 'Now THIS is what I'm talking about.' You have the sensitivity of a post."
"Something set off your assessment of me as oaken. I think it started when we went to the Cracker Barrel."
"In itself a very insensitive thing to do, taking me, there considering I hate the place." Her face was implacable.
"You SAID you didn't mind it as long as it was only a couple of times a month. I actually wrote the DATE down in my PDA for the last time we were there so I could make sure we weren't exceeding your limits." He pulled the PDA and waved it at her. "Do you want to see?"
She shook her head. He continued, "And EVEN if you don't like the food, would you have wanted to miss out on watching General Jack O'Neill behave like a love sick zombie with a poker up his butt?"
"I think the poor man was miserable. That you could enjoy that whole scene merely proves my point. I can just imagine how I'd have felt if my ex-husband had suddenly shown up for lunch. And as to your PDA," she pushed it toward him, "real sensitivity is not something you automate. Why can't you be more like Daniel? Look how attuned he is to Sam? It's uncanny how he always seems to understand how she feels. He is definitely a dream husband."
Damn uncanny, Cam thought to himself. "Carolyn, remember after Daniel was bitten by that thing and he and Sam were having synchronized movements?"
"We have no hard evidence that they really were. I've thought about it and it was late at night and we were very tired. When you see something that makes absolutely no sense, it's frequently because you're not really seeing it. And if you want to explain away another man's sensitivity by blaming it on something alien, I think it makes you look pretty bad."
"Let's rewind a moment," he said, "to that comment about your ex-husband. I don't remember ever hearing that there was one of those." He raised an eyebrow and looked at her expectantly.
"We were married for … five minutes… give or take. I didn't think it was worth mentioning."
Okay," he said. "That's fine. End of discussion. I'll leave you here to fantasize about being married to Daniel Jackson in some other life. Do consider whether he would kiss you like this though." He pulled her to him, all stiff and uncooperative, dug the fingers of one hand into her hair and kissed her passionately and, if he did say so himself, consummately well, while the other hand roamed, caressing her. She could never resist him, just as he couldn't resist her, and she melted immediately. She swayed slightly when he let her go, looking even angrier because she had given in.
"I have a mound of paperwork on my desk. Why don't you go on home this evening without me," he said as he left. "I'll catch a ride or a cab or something."
When he went back to his office, his message light was blinking. There was a voice mail informing him of an unscheduled meeting in minutes. He just knew Daniel's phone was still sans a jack and he went to pick him up on the way. "Briefing at 1000 hours, Jackson," he said, sticking his head into Daniel's office.
"It's like 0959 right now," Daniel said.
"My point exactly. Get your rear in gear."
Daniel grabbed a notebook and a pen and trailed after Cam who was moving rapidly down the corridor. "It didn't come up on my Outlook Calendar."
"Nope. I think it's rather sudden."
"The General didn't catch you in a closet with Dr. Lam or something did he?" Daniel asked. Cam chuckled to himself. Clearly Daniel thought a little payback for summarily hustling him around was in order.
"For your information, that happened a few weeks ago and we already had our 'little talk.'
"But you're not going to tell me about it?" Daniel said, his tone of voice indicating the question was strictly rhetorical.
"Maybe if we both get drunk enough someday that we won't remember the conversation the next morning."
"Then what would be the point?" Daniel asked.
"Exactly."
They were approaching the conference room. Out of the blue, Daniel asked, "Why would Sam be in an SG-1 meeting?"
Cam looked at him, an arrested expression on his face, "What makes you think she is?"
Daniel floundered around a bit and eventually said, "I heard her voice. Didn't you?"
"In a word, no."
Their entry into the room stopped their conversation. Daniel went to sit next to Sam who didn't look at all surprised to see him enter. General Landry began by saying, "I've asked Colonel Carter-Jackson to join us because we are going to need her assistance for a diplomatic mission to Poopoo as soon as the NID tells us they're ready and we can get something set up on the other end. The NID has requested that we attempt to retain the services of Hanna or another of her people here on Earth for a trial program."
"Might I ask what sort of a trial program, Sir?" Sam requested, concern tingeing her voice.
Landry looked uncomfortable. "They're not planning on EXPERIMENTING on her if that's what you're thinking."
"You will be briefing us on what the program is, correct?" Cam asked.
"Of course." Landry was picking his words very carefully. "First, though, I want to make clear that this mission is sanctioned by the President. It is viewed as a hiring decision involving individuals, not acquisition of technology or an alliance. Therefore, it is defined as an administrative act and not under the international watchdog committee. It has been made very clear to me by both the President and the Joint Chiefs that because our allies might not interpret the accords precisely the same way, this is to be kept very quiet, even within the SGC."
Cam was sure that Daniel was angry, really angry. Jackson hated this sort of politics. Cam knew, however, that the somewhat entertaining explosions that used to be Daniel's mode of expressing moral conscience had moderated under Sam's influence. Daniel started to open his mouth and Cam saw a brief expression of pain. I bet Sam is clamped down on his leg to cool him off, Cam theorized. He dropped his pen so he could duck under the table. Yup, she had a vise grip on his thigh. That's going to leave quit a bruise, he thought sympathetically.
Daniel said, with remarkable calm, "It appears, General, as if the United States is considering acquiring the services of an empath without anyone else knowing they have one working for them. Would that be a fair statement?"
Landry nodded curtly. "Let's move on to …"
"Sir," Daniel persisted, "I'm confused then about the orders. Couldn't having an empath present at, oh, some negotiation be as dangerous to the other side as most of the alien technology we've acquired if the other parties don't know about her or him?"
It was clear to Cam that Landry was extremely uncomfortable with what he had been asked to do. Still he was being a good soldier. "We didn't write the accords, Dr. Jackson. There may be a loophole here just because empaths didn't occur to anyone, but there is a loophole none the less. And let's keep it in perspective. It's not like Hanna and her people can read minds. It's just emotions."
"Sir, I respectfully suggest that there is a lot more to this ability than initially meets the eye. Reading emotions can almost be reading minds if it's done right. You just ask the right leading questions or present the right actions so that you know to what it is the emotion is attached." Sam's moderating influence had evaporated by now and Daniel was speaking rapidly, in full cry. "The ramifications are a lot wider than what might occur to someone at first. For instance, you can figure out someone's sexual orientation by noticing when they are feeling lust and when they're not. People should have a right to decide whether they want that to be public information or not. This ability is a massive invasive of individual privacy. Is this really something we want to unleash in our country?"
Daniel sagged back in his chair spent. He shot a quick apprehensive look, not at Landry but at Cam. It's almost as if he can tell I'm really focused on him, Cam thought. From Daniel's expression he imagined Daniel thinking, "Shit, shit, shit. When are you going to learn to shut up?"
"I can tell you've given this a lot of thought, Dr. Jackson, but it isn't our decision to make. I expect you to do your duty and follow Colonel Mitchell's orders on this mission as you would on any other. Are you going to have a problem with that?" Landry asked.
"No," Daniel acquiesced.
Landry looked at Teal'c, Surat, Cam, and Sam in turn and got commitment from each of them as well. Daniel said unhappily through subsequent briefing, but he said nothing further.
As the halls cleared out and things quieted down to the more subdued rhythms of the evening in the SGC, Cam decided he needed to straighten up his office. He was career military so there wasn't much out of place, but it gave him an excuse to slam a lot of things around in a satisfactory way. It palled quickly. Cam wasn't the solitary sort. He decided he'd go see if Daniel was interested in some one-on-one basketball. Something told him that Daniel, like himself, wouldn't be in a big hurry to get home tonight. Sam had been looking most displeased with him. Cam had noticed Daniel rubbing his thigh as he walked out of the conference room.
"Yo, Daniel," he said, walking in and plopping down in the guest chair. Daniel was indeed still there and, amazingly, his office looked like it had been cleaned up a little.
"Cam, you're still here," Daniel said, unenthusiastically.
"You want me to leave?" Cam offered.
"No. I'm just grumpy."
"You weren't too keen on the whole empath recruitment scenario," Cam said.
Daniel shot him a quick, unreadable look, before he returned to retrieving papers out from behind a book shelf he had pulled slightly away from the wall. "Do you think it's a good idea?"
"There'd be pluses," Cam said. "It would make it a lot easy to tell who was lying in court or in negotiations. The good people would be safer."
"Except that sociopaths and psychopaths don't feel guilt. They lie without compunction or guilty emotions. It wouldn't be that easy," Daniel retorted.
"On the down side, I guess your head is the only place a lot of people can retreat to any more. It's a lot harder to have any privacy," Cam said slowly. "There is also the fact that when the other nations found out what we did, they'd never trust us again. Not that they really do now, but it would get much worse."
"Think of the empaths. Do you think once the NID got their hands on them, they would ever be free again?" Daniel suddenly had gone from dispirited to very impassioned.
And then Cam knew, he just knew. Daniel had a dawning expression of horror which he tried to douse as he looked at Cam's face. "I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy," Cam muttered. "Daniel," he said, standing up, "you and I need to go someplace and have a drink, someplace far removed from here. Now."
"I don't really want to stop what I'm …"
"I don't think you really want to have the conversation we're going to have here. Nor do I think you want to put it off while I have wilder and wilder thoughts," Cam said. He walked over to Daniel, took the papers out of his hand, grabbed Daniel's knapsack from the desk, and steered him out the door.
When they arrived at Daniel's car, Cam put his hand out for the keys. "Look, Mitchell, it is MY car," Daniel protested.
"I know where I want to go and I don't trust you very far at the moment," Cam said. "Give."
Cam drove them outside of town and up a winding road to a pull off that looked down on the city. "If you're planning on making out, I'm not interested," Daniel said. He got out of the car and walked toward the sheer drop.
Cam walked up to a few feet behind him. "Daniel, you're an empath. Something happened back there on the planet where you got attacked by that flying whatever it was and it made you an empath."
Daniel laughed. It sounded forced to Cam. "You're crazy, Mitchell. How could being bitten have led to my being an empath?"
"I don't have the foggiest but I'm sure the NID can figure it out." He saw Daniel's back stiffen.
"You'd do that to me?" he asked.
"Damn it, no I wouldn't, but Daniel, we can't just pretend that you don't have this ability. We go into situations all the time where it could make a life or death difference. I think I agree with your arguments about keeping this quiet for the foreseeable future, but I want you to work with me, to use it to keep our team safe and help us fight for truth, justice, and biscuits on Sunday."
"Do you think I haven't been?" Daniel said, curtly.
"You've been handicapped because you've had to hide it from me and because I don't understand what you can do. I guess you can project feelings as well as read them – I mean I watched Sam moan with your pain the night after you were bitten?"
"I don't know what you think you saw but no. I've tried. Sometimes I think it makes a tiny bit of difference, but I've no experimental evidence to verify it." Daniel turned around and looked at Cam. "It's not magic. I have to be almost touching someone, a couple of feet away if they're feeling something really strongly, and I can only read."
"We were at least thirty feet away when you knew Sam was in the conference room," Cam challenged.
"I was afraid you'd go after that like a dog with a bone," Daniel complained. "It's different with Sam. I can sense her even farther away than that."
"Because…..help me out here." Daniel didn't respond. "Because you love her?" He shook his head. He looked hard at Daniel and pounced. "Because she is a fraking empath too! I KNEW IT. I don't understand it but I KNOW IT."
Daniel buried his face in his hands. "Please Mitchell. This whole thing is my fault. I love her more than life itself and I cannot bear to think what would happen to her if you convinced anyone else of these wild ideas."
Cam put his hands on Daniel's shoulders. "Daniel, I swear to you that I will not tell another soul about this unless we talk about it and decide that's the right thing to do."
Daniel looked up at him, hope welling in his eyes. Cam realized Daniel was reading him, discovering that he was completely sincere. Daniel made a sigh of relief, grabbed Cam, and hugged him.
"Hey Daniel. I thought you said you didn't want to make out," Cam said after a moment.
Daniel said. "You have my thanks and my promise to do whatever I can do with this ability without betraying Sam and myself."
Daniel drove Cam home. Cam was too exhilarated by what had happened to be bothered by the possible impending scene with Carolyn. In the back of his mind, he realized he had added another layer of complexity to their relationship by now having something huge he couldn't share with her, but he didn't want to deal with that now. He unlocked the door and walked into a dark living room. By the light bleeding in from the kitchen, he could just make out a dark figure lying on the couch. His soldier's instincts kicked in for just a moment, but the sniffling sound and subsequent nose blowing told him this wasn't an intruder. He dropped his keys on the little table next to the arm chair and shucked his coat as he walked toward her. He knelt by the side of the couch and said softly, "You okay, Caro?"
"You're not mad? Not mad at me for not telling you I was married before and being such a witch?" she asked in a little girl voice.
He reached out and wiped tears from her cheek. "Oh darlin', did I make you cry? I never want to make you cry."
He gathered her in his arms and rocked her back and forth gently. "You know me. I don't stay mad long. I do something about it if I have to, but I don't stay mad."
"I know. I was afraid you had done something about it," she confessed. "Gone somewhere else for the night and were only going to show up to get your stuff, preferably when I wasn't home."
"Carolyn, I love you like in I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I can't leave. I shouldn't tell you that because then I don't negotiate from a position of strength, but I can't play games with you either."
"Come here," she commanded him and pulled him onto the couch. "It's a big couch and there isn't much of me."
He stretched out beside her and felt her small boned body, both so fragile and so strong. He wiped the rest of the tears from her cheeks and began kissing her. At first it was very gentle but she wasn't having that. She captured his mouth and savaged it. She pulled him on top of her and arched up against him. He raised up on his elbows and looked down at her. He took a deep breath and put the plan into place that had been lingering at the back of his mind ever since he talked to Daniel that morning. "Carolyn, I'm not going to move out unless you throw me out and I look forward to holding you and kissing you BUT."
"BUT?"
"I want to get married. I've not made any secret about it. Acting exactly as if we were married without marriage, it makes a mockery of how I feel about you, of how I guess I always thought these things were supposed to be. I've waited a long time to find a woman I want to become one with. I'm sure I'll be enormously frustrated but I'd feel better about everything if we stopped … making love."
In the thick silence that surrounded them after that bombshell, Cam dusted off some of the prayers his granny had taught him long ago and prayed that this would work.