Reflections

Chapter Five

"So," Daniel asked. "How are things with Sam?"

He kept his voice low out of deference to Sam's position in the SGC, even though it was fairly common knowledge that Jack and Sam were seeing each other. Still, Daniel figured there were probably people who didn't have the whole story and would run with whatever tendrils they found. Human nature was the same the world over, whether military or civilian, classified or unclassified.

Jack shrugged. "Fine."

There were times when Daniel wondered why he'd ever thought that retirement would change Jack. After all, such habits were developed over twenty years, and the habit of staying close-lipped about any feelings or possible 'state of relationship' between him and Sam had been developed over eight long years.

Hope springs eternal, I guess.

"Really?" he replied.

He got a narrow-eyed gaze for his questioning. "Really."

"Oh, good," he said, not believing a word of it. "I'm just asking because Sam's been staying on base a lot and working until all hours of the night."

It wasn't just the long hours and staying on-base, after all, Sam had been known to go for weeks without leaving the SGC when she was working on a particularly urgent project. But there were no urgent projects in the works, there was no crisis that required her attention, and there were no deadlines to be met.

Ordinarily, Jack wouldn't have let her work herself to the bone like this. He would have been chivvying her to go home, go out, do something, be somewhere other than work.

Somehow, Daniel doubted this was an ordinary situation.

And nothing said that more than the glass of blue jello that sat opposite Jack. The other man wasn't usually this oblique. Usually, he'd collar Sam in her lab, taking a snack along to her, rather than waiting for her to turn up in the commissary.

That he was sitting here waiting was a good indication of his state of mind at this moment.

Of course, there was the whole thing with Jack being very reticent about his relationship with Sam. All Daniel got regarding his statement and oblique question was another shrug. "Carter works the hours she wants to work, Daniel."

Hmmm...

Daniel had never been fishing. Jack's cabin didn't count since there weren't actually fish in that pond. Otherwise, there weren't a lot of fish to catch at archaeological digs, academic institutes, and beneath Cheyenne mountain. However, he was well aware of the theory of it; put out the bait, throw the line, wait for the bite, and play the fish until you had it by the gills.

"Well," he conceded, "I suppose she does have quite a bit on her plate right now. Apparently she and Samuel are thick as thieves."

It was nothing more than a twitch, but Daniel knew his friend very well.

"They've got a lot to talk about." Jack's answer was non-committal, carefully neutral, and quite uninviting.

Then again, Daniel had never needed an invite to start in on a conversation, nor continue it, even when the person didn't want it continued. And he hadn't yet reeled in his fish. "It's quite amazing that Samuel's life matches Sam's so closely, even though he's male."

It was a shot in the dark, nothing more than a guess. But Jack's flinch was all the answer Daniel needed to know why Sam was spending so much time on the base, why his friends' relationship wasn't going anywhere, and exactly what Jack's problem was.

"Amazing," Jack said, more than a little flatly.

Clumsy, Jack. He nearly sighed and shook his head. "You know, the women on-base think Samuel's rather good-looking."

It wasn't quite a squirm, but it came close. A proto-squirm, perhaps? "That's nice, Daniel," Jack said in the conversational tones of someone about to lose their temper. "Now what the hell do you think you're going on about?"

"Me?" Innocent had never been Daniel's thing. Sam could do guileless well, and Daniel had already seen Samuel bring out the 'who me' look against Doc Brightman. He leaned back in his chair, and regarded Jack diagonally, across the table. "I don't remember the last time you held a piece of pie for me, Jack."

"I haven't ever held a piece of pie for you, Daniel."

"No, you haven't," Daniel agreed.

Jack frowned, and opened his mouth to make a comeback retort.

Then the chair opposite Jack was pulled back and Samuel sat down, echoing Sam's fluid grace as he settled himself at the table. "God, I'm starving. Breakfast feels like it was hours ago."

"That would be because it was hours ago," Daniel murmured. "It's nearly eleven."

"That would do it," Samuel muttered, and leaned forward on his arms, in the pose that Daniel had long ago mentally labelled 'restless Sam'.

When Daniel had mentioned his little anthropology project to Sam a week ago, he hadn't realised just how much fodder there would be for such research. The similarities and differences between Sam and Samuel were many and varied, in some things they were practically twins, in others, they were hyperdrive years apart.

For instance, Sam would have paused by the table, checking that her presence would be acceptable, even after eight years of familiarity and friendship with her team-mates. On the flip side of the coin, it never crossed Samuel's mind that his presence might be unwelcome to the two men sitting there. As far as he was concerned, the chair was free, and the fact that the glass of jello sat there was incidental.

It might be personality, Daniel mused as Samuel raked one hand through short blond hair and huffed as he leaned back, or it might just be the confidence of a man who had never seen himself as anything but acceptable company to other men.

Jack looked beyond the tall blonde man for the woman he'd been waiting for. There was no sign of the slim figure walking easily through the room, catching the eye wherever she went. "Where's Carter?"

"Oh, Sam decided not to come out," Samuel said. "She's working on the chip array for the Lansinarian generator. It needs some specific radiation shielding because of that mid-range star of theirs, and I left her and Dr. Benaud arguing over whether or not the configuration would need shielding against gamma radiation."

Daniel followed the conversation without too much trouble. He knew of the Lansinarian generator project and was used to trying to keep up with Sam when she got involved in these things.

However, Jack was looking at Samuel with the kind of expression he usually gave Sam when she technobabbled him - except that he looked less inclined to ask for a recap in plain English, and more likely to give the man a chewing out for confusing him.

Interesting.

Samuel, on the other hand, had a broad grin on his face. "Should I translate, sir?"

"No, thanks," Jack said. Oddly enough, he didn't correct Samuel's use of the honourific, where he would have done so with Sam. "So, she's still working?"

Sam's counterpart shook his head. "And I thought Dad was a workaholic. She leaves him for dead." He sat up slightly and indicated the glass of jello. "I guess this was for her? Do you mind if I...?"

Jack waved for the Colonel to take the glass, although he was probably less than happy about Samuel's appropriation of Sam's food - and his interruption of what was almost a tradition between Daniel's friends. "Jacob didn't seem that bad."

"Not after he blended with Selmak, no," Samuel said, splitting jello cubes with the spoon. "Before that, though, the old man was all work, work, work. At least the snake knew how to make him relax - even if it did have to take over his brain to get him to take a breather."

There were shades of strangeness in hearing Jacob spoken of with such casual disrespect. Sam's relationship with her Dad, while a lot easier these last five years, had never seen him described in such cavalier terms. Daniel chose not to comment, although he noted Jack was a little surprised at the phrasing as well.

"Uh, I'm guessing from the past tense that your Jacob died recently, too," Daniel said.

"Yeah. Kicked the bucket when Selmak went. Just after the thing with Anubis." Samuel shook his head. "He went out quiet - not the way I'd ever thought he would..." He rested his jaw in his hand. "Probably not the way he ever thought he would, either. Still, he got an extra five years of life - that's gotta be something."

"Yeah," Daniel echoed, trying to imagine Sam saying her father 'kicked the bucket.' The careless use of the phrase indicated a very different attitude to life. Judging by the fleeting expression on Jack's face, Daniel wasn't the only one to note that.

"So you got Jolinar, too, then?"

Samuel gave him an odd look before understanding lightened his expression. "Oh, you wouldn't have seen the report yet. Yeah, Jolinar, the ashrak, the Tok'ra... We've got quite a lot of events in common. Quite a few different, but same overall outcome."

And one huge difference in that Jack O'Neill would never have looked twice at Samuel Carter, simply because his team-mate was a male. Not that Jack was going to mention that little truth short of a za'tarc device.

"Must take some getting used to," Daniel suggested. "I mean, everyone here's used to Sam."

Samuel grimaced. "Takes some mental gymnastics," he said. "Especially since they're what I'm expecting but I'm not what they're expecting. It's all pretty confusing, but we're working it out. Sam's helping me out with that," he said, beginning to take to his topic amidst bites of jello. "I think she feels a bit threatened by the whole 'man in the military' thing."

Daniel could see how that might be the case.

"She doesn't have to feel threatened," Jack said with just a hint of belligerence to his voice.

Samuel caught it and backed off immediately. "I wasn't saying she should, just that she does. I mean, we both know that the military's made for men - and she's definitely a woman." Now there was a distinctly admiring note in Samuel's voice. It made both Daniel and Jack stare at him. "What?"

"Well, I don't know what Jack's thinking, but I'm wondering if this classifies as narcissicism." Daniel made a joke of it, although a part of him was distinctly disturbed by the thought of Samuel admiring Sam. It was practically incest.

Samuel's laugh rang through the cafeteria, making heads turn and eyebrows rise. "Not likely! As she told me early on, she's not me and I'm not her. We're both very glad of that." The blue eyes gleamed with a hint of mischief. "Right, Jack?"

The smile Jack gave was terse and not entirely comfortable. "Yeah, right." He huffed out a breath and laid his palms down on the table. "Nice as this conversation's been, I've got some more people to see before I head back out from the mountain. Daniel, is next Monday still on?"

"If we're not off-world," Daniel conceded. Every second Monday night was chess night for the two of them - Jack's way of keeping up with him. He knew that Jack and Teal'c were working on the cadet and graduate training program together, so Jack kept in touch with Teal'c that way.

And, until Samuel came along, Jack and Sam had been seeing each other at least a couple of times a week.

That was the key to it, Daniel supposed as Jack walked out of the commissary. Until Samuel came along.

Samuel Carter who was a lot like Samantha Carter - enough to give you a false sense of familiarity before he said or did something that was so very not Sam.

Like the look on his face as he turned his head to regard Daniel in the chair beside him. "So, what's the thing with them?"

"Them?"

Samuel rolled his eyes. "Don't play the innocent with me, Daniel. You know what I mean! Them. Her and O'Neill."

This was not the question Daniel particularly wanted to be asked. Jack and Sam's relationship had so many nuances and so many years behind it, it was impossible to properly explain in a matter of minutes - or hours, for that matter.

"I guess it depends exactly what you're angling to know," he said at last. "I mean, they're seeing each other - although perhaps not as much right now as they were a while ago - but you already know that."

Samuel's lips tugged to the side with a look that was very much like Sam's expression when Daniel said or did something that she knew she shouldn't professionally condone, but which personally amused her. "What about the rumours? I mean, this didn't come out of nowhere, surely!"

Daniel shrugged, "The rumours were there from day one. Well, maybe by week four or five when she..." He paused. "Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"I think I'm strong enough to take it."

"You got the neanderthal infection in your command, too, didn't you?"

"Yes." Samuel paused in scraping up the last drabs of jello from the glass, turning to stare at Daniel. "Tell me she didn't do what I'm thinking she did."

"The primary urge of the neanderthal female is to find the strongest male to mate with," Daniel said simply.

Glass and spoon were dropped back to the table with a clatter as the other man wrinkled his nose. "All he did was cuff me around a bit."

"Alpha male behaviour towards the younger males of his tribe. Like a reprimand."

"Yeah, that's what you said then, too." Samuel winced and ran his hands through his hair. "God, what else?"

"Your Daniel went through the mirror on P3X-233?"

"Yes."

"Well, I encountered a reality where Sam had never joined the military, Jack was the General of the SGC, and they were engaged. And another Dr. Samantha Carter came through the mirror a few years later - after her husband died in the Goa'uld assault on the SGC." Daniel shrugged, "Small things, all adding up. I mean, you're asking the wrong person - I can only give you the third-hand evidence. If you want the first-hand stuff you should ask Sam."

Samuel grimaced. "She's not very talkative right now. The whole 'threatened' thing, I think." He shrugged, slim, broad shoulders jerking in nonchalant dismissal. "So...hasn't there been gossip about this?"

Daniel couldn't help his snort, impolite as it was. "Well, the gossip's always been there, but they never crossed any lines that I ever heard about." Not that he was the most informed person on the base, but he felt himself to be fairly current on what was being said around the facility. "People respect them. They never acted unprofessionally - and if they did, then either nobody ever knew about it or it didn't affect their work."

Even after eight years, Daniel wasn't sure whether his friends had ever crossed a line they shouldn't have. But then, he'd never considered it his business, and he didn't know all the details of what kind of behaviour was unacceptable in the military.

The other man was shaking his head. "My brain feels like it's been packed full of all the stuff I had to learn and develop for my Ph.D in the space of a week. I hope it gets easier." He sighed. "Well, good luck to them," he said at last. "I guess if it really is..." there was a pause where they both mentally inserted the word Samuel wasn't comfortable using to refer to his counterpart and the counterpart of his commanding officer, "...you know, they'll get things sorted out between them sooner or later."

Thinking it over later as he meandered up to his lab, Daniel wasn't so sure.

He'd always been a little bit disdainful of the taboo against homosexuality among the military. Even with the laws relaxed, it seemed insulting to suggest that a homosexual man was incapable of controlling himself around other men. It was like suggesting that at heterosexual man was incapable of controlling himself around women.

Then again, given the behaviour of some men around women, perhaps the implications weren't all that far off.

Daniel grimaced as he ambled out of the elevator and down the corridor, weaving in and out of the airmen, enlisteds, and officers along the way and greeting those he knew.

For him, gender didn't make so much of a difference. But he'd been brought up with a very different mentality to Jack. For Jack - as for Sam - gender made a lot of difference.

As Daniel swiped his card to enter his lab, he hoped that it didn't make too much difference for Jack and Sam.

-saturday-

By the time Sam got to the control room, the activity had the hurried purposefulness of a crisis just averted.

"You're lucky you dialled when you did, Colonel," General Hammond was saying to the leader of an SG-team who was looking distinctly puffed. "Ten minutes earlier the Stargate was out of commission."

"Narrow margins, sir," the Major said, shaking his head. "Very narrow margins."

Sam glanced around the control room as she raked one hand through sweaty hair. She'd been in the middle of sparring against Peta Meridian when the call came for her presence in the control room. The general had seen her, but didn't point out something she had to see to, and while several of the people around the room gave her a quick glance and smile, they didn't look as though they needed her help either.

In fact, everything looked in order, although several of the techs were still working on one of the databanks in the far corner of the control room - the ones that monitored the power. She turned back to General Hammond as she heard the SG-team leader head off to the infirmary for his post-gate. "What happened, sir?"

"Nothing to worry about, Colonel," said a voice from beneath one of the consoles, startling her. A moment later, Samuel crawled out from a series of databanks. "A temporary problem, all fixed now."

The easy dismissal irked a little. Sam looked from her counterpart to General Hammond to the gate technician seated at the main terminal.

"It was a power spike in the main feed," the technician explained. "It shorted out one of the dampeners, and...Colonel Carter," his eyes flickered towards Samuel, "did some rewiring."

"Creative rewiring," Samuel added, crossing the room to put away the pliers he'd been wielding. "I was just neatening it up when you came in."

Sam glanced at the corner where he'd been working. "You know that the dampeners can't be connected to the same transformer group as the cable for the dialling computers? The dampener feedback interferes with the dialling signals."

He regarded her with a tolerant gaze. "Only when you run it in serial."

"But it can't be run in parallel," she objected, suddenly annoyed by his nonchalance. "That's too much power at the connection point - it overheats and blows."

"Look, if you feel it's necessary, you can check my work," Samuel said, waving a hand at the desk beneath which he'd been fiddling. "But I tell you, it can be done - if you know how to set it up. Besides," he added, "you made it back through the 'gate without shorting the system. I think that speaks for itself."

And Sam had no defence against that argument.

And no defence against the realisation that most of the control room, her team, and General Hammond had been witness to the exchange between them - a clash of Samuel's authority when compared to hers.

As she glanced around the room, Sam glimpsed some looks, quickly turned aside, and felt a rush of momentary embarrassment, before it was taken over by a calm heat. Pale skin was a curse - as were the sleeveless singlet tops that she wore to spar against Peta.

She knew the control room, every inch of it. Over eight years, she'd spend almost as many hours in here as she had off-world, and it was her baby as much as her projects in the labs. The dampeners couldn't be run in parallel with the dialling computers, she'd tried it in the earliest days of the SGC project and come very close to shorting out the Stargate.

Except that Samuel had been the primary technical expert on his Stargate, and it seemed the last SG-team had made it back through the Stargate without the system shorting out...

"Colonel?"

Ordinarily, there would have been some amusement in noting that both she and her counterpart turned to answer the General.

"In my experience, sir, running it in parallel is a more efficient use of power at first, but long-term, it tends to heat the connections."

"Only if you don't know how to make the connections so the excess heat is adequately dealt with."

She wasn't going to argue that there was only one way to make the connections. And she certainly wasn't going to crawl in under there right now, straight after returning from an off-world mission that had involved swamplands and little flying insects that got everywhere.

Suddenly, she became aware of the stiffness of her shoulders where Peta had gotten a blow in. And she was very aware of both General Hammond and Samuel watching her - along with the rest of the control room personnel.

It was the General who took the initiative. "I'd appreciate you looking over...Colonel Carter's work later, Colonel," he said, meeting Sam's eyes with an expression that understood more than he indicated in words. "Not to doubt your knowledge of the technical workings," he told Samuel, whose eyes had narrowed slightly at what amounted to an order for Sam to inspect his work. "But our Colonel Carter has a familiarity with this control room and the way it works, which may not necessarily translate from your world to ours."

His gaze returned to Sam, now taking in her sweat-stained appearance. "Continue with your activities, Colonel, and report to the Gateroom to check things out once you've cleaned up afterwards."

Sam nodded. It was a rescue of sorts, and she took it gratefully. "Yes, sir."

The General turned away, leaving her and Samuel eyeing each other.

His mouth pulled to the side, annoyed yet accepting. "Check it all you like. I'm right." And he turned away to tidy up the other tools he'd been working with - a dismissal of Sam that left her with her eyes narrowed.

I'm right.

Sam thought about the confidence of that statement as she stripped down and showered after the remainder of her bout with Peta.

This was the first major conflict she'd had with her counterpart.

Oh, they'd disagreed on a variety of topics and means and methods - especially before he was assigned his own lab to work in, instead of constantly being around her - but Sam had the upper hand in that it was her SGC, her work, her turf, and she knew the command.

Not that she thought she was being territorial.

It was just difficult to adjust from being the only Sam Carter in the world to having another 'Sam Carter' around. Especially someone who was a lot like her in so many ways, yet very different in so many others, and who represented a lot of things that she could never have.

She hadn't felt quite this way with Dr. Carter - perhaps because the other woman hadn't been around long enough for Sam to develop the feeling of being threatened. And the fact that she was feeling threatened at all was making her very uncomfortable - both with Samuel and with what it said about herself.

Sam had always considered working at the SGC had been one of the most rewarding career paths she'd ever taken. She'd gained a line of work that she truly enjoyed working on, made friends of people she would never otherwise have met, and seen and done things that she'd never even dreamed of doing as a child.

In addition to that, during her years at the SGC, she'd been promoted twice, gained numerous commendations, earned the unalloyed respect of men, women, and aliens, and met a man worth following in command and life.

And yet, for all that, there were moments when Sam felt the fragility of everything she'd done at the SGC. The mantra that she was only as good as the last thing she'd done echoed in her ears. Her father had taught that to her, set her on a path that decried mediocrity that pointed her to the stars.

Her father who had wanted another boy.

It was an old jest - something said in thoughtlessness and which remained like a thorn beneath her skin.

Well, in another world, he'd gotten the second son he wanted.

Sam wondered if that difference had given her counterpart the confidence she felt lacking within her. She'd known for several years that she had a strong need to gain the respect of those around her - the appreciation of her worth from those whom she respected.

If there was one thing that Samuel Carter could not be said to lack, it was self-confidence. The man had certainty of his value, of his likeability, of his appeal - but not in the odiously smug way that she'd loathed in McKay. This was a man who knew his worth and wasn't going to settle for being considered less.

In some ways, he reminded her of Jack.

Of course, Colonel O'Neill had settled for being considered less than he was, but most of the time it had been a blind. He'd let people underestimate him, and then took pleasure in catching them out.

Sam slid her face under the shower spray and let the water sluice between her teeth as she grimaced.

As if this whole 'alternate brother' thing wasn't giving her enough grief at work, things with her and Jack hadn't been totally rosy either. He'd definitely withdrawn.

Oh, they still spent time together, but she'd catch him with this odd look on his face as he watched her, and knew that he was thinking of Samuel. And there wasn't anything she could do or say about it either.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She'd asked him that one night after she gave him a beer and a kiss, and saw the shadow cross his face as she settled beside him on the sofa.

"Why?" Jack had asked bluntly. "It's my problem, not yours."

Sam had been uncomfortably reminded of the 'it's not you, it's me' brush-off. And she hadn't quite worked out how to pursue a personal matter beyond the point where he wanted the topic ended. On one hand, it wasn't in her nature to let it slide by if she thought it merited attention; on the other, she wasn't used to going directly against him.

It was a definite negative of their time as commander and subordinate.

It was difficult dealing with Samuel and everything he was challenging at work, and then dealing with Jack and everything he was challenging in her personal life.

Yesterday, she'd even found herself wishing she'd stuck with Pete.

Don't go there, Sam. She ran the loofah along her shoulders and arms, working the gel into a lather across her body.

She'd split with Pete for a reason. It had taken her six months to realise that she could love and marry Pete Shanahan, but she'd be lying to him every day in a marriage where he came second best to another man.

Her best always went to the SGC and to Jack. And that was the plain truth of it.

Pete didn't deserve that. No man did.

In a way, it freed her to be who she wanted to be; not who she thought she had to be in order to please her boyfriend. And while she had a better idea of who she was in the manner that she related to Jack, she was still struggling to work out the interpersonal side of their relationship.

Sam sighed and finished up her shower.

The locker room seemed very empty and echoey. After years of being the only woman on SG-1, she was used to it. Unless another team arrived at the same time, or a female consultant had come along with them, she'd always cleaned up alone.

There'd been times when that had been a definite bonus. As fond as she was of them, the Colonel and Daniel had always been strong personalities that grated against each other - and occasionally against Sam as well. Teal'c was easier to be around, in spite of his size and history, he'd always generated a sense of peace about him.

Now, she just thought it felt...lonely.

She imagined Samuel going through the post-gate with his team, exchanging quips with the Colonel, teasing Daniel about whatever fascinating thing he'd discovered on the latest planet. No woman in the team to have to split up the camraderie, no woman for whom they had to moderate their jokes and cuffs, just all guys. A real team, as one of the younger SG-team commanders had said when the sole woman in his team transferred back into the labs and was replaced by another guy.

As the towelled herself dry, quite viciously, she refused to let herself think on this any longer. It was poisoning her brain, and she had enough to deal with tonight already. There were still the connections to check. And then later, she might call Jack and see what he was doing.

Maybe.

Two hours, a debriefing, a torch, and a fair bit of dust later, Sam sat back on her haunches in the control room and was forced to admit that Samuel was right. The connections could be made in parallel without endangering either function. Although he'd done some funky wiring in the process.

As she climbed to her feet and dusted herself off, Sam felt slightly annoyed that her counterpart had been right. After all, she'd tried that connection God knew how many times and each time, the laws of nature had overruled the convenience of the setup. She'd even done the equations. It wasn't possible to run that much voltage through those connections and not have the excess power convert to heat.

But Samuel had done it.

Sam had heard herself described as the SGC's wunderkind. Naquadah generators, particle accelerators, synaptic disruptors, and more - she was used to bending the laws of the universe to get what she wanted done.

This was beyond even her skill. And she didn't much like the feeling of being outclassed. Even by herself.

She carefully stifled that resentment as she packed up the tools, and slipped the roll back into its customary place. She ignored the glances of the technicians still in the room as she bid them goodnight.

And she went looking for her counterpart.

He hadn't yet been authorised to go off-base. They were still putting together his documentation and setting him up as a real person in the world, and would be doing so for a few days yet. In the meantime, he was staying in one of the guest quarters, and could be found on the base all-hours.

As for when he finally was allowed off-base...

There was no way he'd be sharing Sam's house. It was her house.

Sam felt a little ashamed at the selfishness, but she swiftly quashed it. It was her house and the fact that it had been his house in his own world was irrelevant. They weren't in his world. They were in hers and so it was her house.

And if that thought was childish, then Sam supposed she was being childish.

Several false trails later, she located him in one of the rec rooms, watching the basketball playoffs. About half a dozen officers from various SG-teams were gathered about the couch and armchairs with a litter of Coke bottles and corn chip packets strewn about them.

Sam glanced quickly over the room, and figured that if these guys weren't beered up, they were certainly sugar-high and fully caffeinated.

And making a noise that she'd heard from all the way down the corridor as she stepped out of the elevator.

Colonels March and Becker, Majors Stims, Mergon, and Barton, and Samuel Carter were in the middle of cheering one team - it looked like UCLA - the lines of their faces eager and avid by the light of the large television screen.

Maybe this wasn't the best of times to try to see Samuel.

The team the guys were rooting for scored - a three-pointer, or so the announcer exclaimed over the sound system. There was a loud cheer from the guys, and the space above the couch was abruptly perforated by fists punching into the air.

They looked like they were having a good time, all the guys together, having a bit of fun.

And Samuel was sitting on the end of the couch, no discomfort in his expression or his posture, slapping Ian Becker on the shoulder in good-natured glee as he leaned over to grab the bottle of Coke sitting on the table corner.

Sam had never 'mingled' with the other officers of her rank. At least, not the male ones. Some of the other female officers had done it a few times, but such gatherings were more usually of the men than the women. Oh, the women of the base caught up and exchanged gossip and ran the news through their own lines, but a lot of those relationships were casual rather than close.

And every female officer knew how difficult it was to be 'one of the guys' when you didn't have testosterone poisoning.

Samuel had no reservations about hanging out with the guys - that was plain enough. And, judging by the jokes and taunts being exchanged between the men, he was pretty well-accepted by them too.

She was considering turning away, when Samuel half-turned in glee to the guy next to him and spotted her hesitating in the doorway.

"Hey Sam!" He exclaimed, a grin on his face. "You a UCLA supporter?"

The awareness of her presence was an immediate dampener on the men in the room. Several hands smoothed down hair, more than one inquiring glance was shot in her direction, and they calmed down considerably, although Major Mergon was still cheering for the player dribbling the ball across the screen towards his goal.

Still, she summed up a faint, dry smile. "Do I get lynched if I'm not?"

"Tonight?" Major Ben Stims asked. "Yeah. What's up, Colonel?"

In short, Nice to see you here, Colonel, now do your business and leave the guys to enjoy their game in peace.

Lovely.

"Actually, I was wondering if I could have a word with Colonel Carter."

She saw the looks the other guys gave Samuel as he got up and crossed the room.

"If you're heading out, get some more Coke from the vending machine, Carter," Lieutenant Colonel Vincent March said. "Your turn."

"March, they haven't even sorted out my pay yet," Samuel snorted. "I have no money." But he jerked his head in the direction of the vending machines as he emerged from the room. "Go for a walk?"

"Hey, don't be too long, Carter," yelled one of the guys. "Or you'll miss the best bit."

Samuel just laughed, shook his head and began walking.

They were out of earshot when he finally said, "I'm guessing you want to know how it's done."

"We tried dozens of configurations. That's the one that we've held for the last six years," Sam said, keeping the irritation out of her voice. What was worse was that she didn't know if it was irritation with herself for never seeing the answer or irritation with him for doing so. "It's never played up since."

He shrugged, "Look, as the General pointed out, I don't know how everything works around here. But the connection was playing up and that was the config I was accustomed to - and we had loads of trouble trying to get it working, too - but when we did--"

"What exactly did you do to it?"

Samuel grimaced. "Look, this isn't really the time for a tech lesson. And it's not something I can explain easily to you - you're better off seeing it yourself." He glanced across at her, just as tall as she, with the same wide mouth, the same blond hair, the same blue eyes - although she'd never had the square planes of brow and cheekbone and jaw that he sported. Even their strides matched, although Daniel had said that Sam had the slightest swing of the hips. "It's a Saturday night, Sam! Don't you have somewhere to be? I know you've got someone to be with," he said. "So what the hell are you still doing on the base?"

"Until twenty minutes ago, I was following orders and checking over your work," Sam said evenly, resenting the suggestion that she had no life. Never mind that, over the last eight years, she'd rarely 'had a life' as most people defined it. But for all that, she'd enjoyed the life she'd had - more than some people seemed to enjoy their 'life'. "And I thought it might be a good time to get you now."

"Well, it's not," he said bluntly and stopped in the middle of the corridor. This level was empty at this time of night, and quiet - although she could still hear the distant yells and cheers of the guys from the rec room. "Look, I know this isn't easy for you - it's not easy for me either. But you've got issues with me being a guy and having all the things you never had - I can't help that, any more than you could help being a girl. Just don't take it out on me because you're worried I'm going to take your place."

She huffed, a little annoyed by his assumption. "This isn't about you," she said. "This is about someone explaining to me what they did to get a particular result - it has nothing to do with you, or the fact that you're a guy."

He gave her a look - what she was coming to think of as the rampantly disbelieving expression. "You're sure of that?" Samuel asked. "Because from where I'm standing this all seems like an inferiority complex gone overboard."

Sam knew her eyes were narrowing. "I said this has nothing to do with you," she said with quiet, angry precision. "I just wanted to know how you did it."

"And I'll tell you - just not now, okay?" And now his words were short. "Look, have yourself a good night. I'm going to get the drinks and head back to the rec room. If you want to join us, you're welcome, but if I wasn't confined to base, I'd be out of here in less time than it would take to swipe a security card."

With that, Samuel turned on his heel and walked off down the corridor, leaving her there.

It was an effort to rein in her temper as she watched him turn the corner, but she managed it. She had trinium self-control and lots of reason to use it.

Okay, so maybe Saturday night wasn't the best of times to be asking someone to help with a work problem. But she'd thought that he, of all people, would be interested in explaining how he'd done what he'd done. And time, date, and place had rarely mattered to her when there was a problem to be solved.

Of course, he wasn't her.

Then again, she supposed as she stalked off towards the elevators, maybe he didn't want to explain how he'd done it. After all, it was something he could do that she couldn't.

She paused outside the elevators, the card in her hand hovering just over the reader, paused in the act of swiping.

When did this become a competition? 'Anything you can do, I can do better?' She didn't know.

She didn't know and it was beginning to worry her.

Was it really a competition? Her against Samuel, with only one winner out of it?

It shouldn't be. She knew it shouldn't. But some instinct in her insisted that Samuel was a threat, and that it was a competition - and the winner would get Sam's position.

It was a slightly terrifying thought.

They'd always said she was invaluable to the SGC - that it would take a handful of people to fill all the roles she managed to fill in her duties. In truth, it wouldn't take a handful of people - just one Lieutenant Colonel who'd been her counterpart in another world.

God, she needed a break from all this.

Except that a break - a long break - would give Samuel time to consolidate his position...

God, she really needed a break from all this...

Sam swiped the card and wondered if Jack was home. She'd only seen him briefly when he poked his head in on Thursday, she'd been off-world since. Then again, he might not want to see her. He usually called when he knew she was due back and she'd checked her voicemail just before heading off to the debriefing and there weren't any messages.

Maybe she'd just have a quiet night, then. It wasn't a terrible thing: she'd had quiet nights many times before.

But as Sam stepped into the elevator, she heard the renewed strains of the guys cheering from far down the halls and felt very much as though a 'quiet' night was going to translate into a 'lonely' one.

- TBC -

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