Reflections

Chapter Seven

Nobody would have ever said that the control room of the SGC was the place to be on a Friday night. And yet, it was Friday night and, once again, Sam was in the control room, working on the computers.

This time, she didn't even have the excuse that General Hammond had requested her to check over Samuel's work.

She did have the excuse that the man she was seeing was 'catching up with a friend' and was busy tonight.

Sam hadn't dared to ask what kind of a friend he was seeing. Kerry Johnson had been in town this week, and while she trusted Jack, she couldn't quite forget that he'd been seeing the other woman for at least a month before Sam ever found out.

The memory of that meeting still made her shiver slightly. That realisation, cold as winter sleet and just as biting: she'd had her chance and blown it on Pete, and even her halting, lame explanations to the General were trumped by the woman who'd stepped neatly across the decking to stand beside him and the charred remains of his barbecue lunch.

And yet, in spite of her fears as she hung up the phone this afternoon, Sam hadn't been able to bring herself to ask him the question she'd desperately wanted to ask.

Who?

Her fingers flashed over the keyboard, but even she was aware that she was hitting the keys a little harder than was strictly necessary.

However, she was the technical expert on the Stargate, and if she was receiving odd sideways glances from the other technicians in the room, she could ignore them. Mostly.

She waited for the system to recompile the new, improved iris program. The backdoor had been patched in the meantime, as tight as Sam could make it. When she'd finished, she'd been certain that not even Samuel would be able to get into the system that way.And once this compile was finished, not even the replicator version of her would be able to get into the system.

Okay, so maybe her replicator self might be able to do it, but it wouldn't be easy.

The compile completed, and she began to initiate a diagnostics check and sat back in the chair, scraping her hand through her hair in relief.

"Iris program all done?"

His voice startled her, and she turned sharply. Samuel was leaning against one of the walls, watching her with an easy smile.

"Yes," she said, taking a deep breath and glancing back at the screen to determine the status of the diagnostics. "Just finished. Well, nearly. I'm just running a system diagnostic to make sure everything's okay in there."

His mouth quirked. "So once that's done, did you have any plans for tonight? Or were you planning to spend this weekend on base as well?"

The tone he used was a teasing one, but she flushed, remembering his comment last weekend. It's a Saturday night, Sam! Don't you have somewhere to be?

So she gave him her most polite smile. "Actually, I was going to head home once this was done."

"Home?" Samuel must have learned that brow arch from Teal'c.

"Home." She regarded him challengingly. "Unless you have a better offer?"

He grinned, open and charming. "O'Malley's. Dinner."

Sam hadn't actually expected him to meet her challenge, and she had a momentary double-take. "You're allowed off base?"

"Notice came in, last thing this afternoon," he said. "I'm free to be let loose on the world."

The diagnostic program gave the short beep to indicate it had finished, and Sam set the system back to idle and handed the terminal over to the gate technician. "Thank you, sergeant."

Samuel followed her out of the control room down the corridor towards the lifts, keeping an easy pace beside her. "So?"

"So what?"

He gave her a scornful look. "So, are we going to do O'Malley's?"

Sam swiped her card at the elevators. On one hand, O'Malley's sounded like a great idea. On the other hand, this almost sounded like a date. And that, as Jack would have said, was just plain weird.

"It's not a date if that's what you're wondering," Samuel said, divining her thoughts. "It's the first time I've been allowed out of the SGC since I got here. That's three weeks underground - not counting the little fenced-off area where personnel take their smoking breaks. I haven't had a beer in all that time, and my memories of the taste of steak are growing dim."

The elevator arrived and she stepped in. His charm was very effective when he brought the full force of it to bear with large blue eyes, open expression, and the tiniest glimmer of mischief in the quirk of his smile. Sam couldn't help smiling back at him, but she still wondered if she'd ever been this brazen around men.

"I don't know," she began as the doors closed behind him.

"It's obvious you don't have anything to do tonight," Samuel said, glancing at her with exasperation. "And I could do with some company just as much as you."

Sam wasn't about to admit it, but it was the best offer she'd received for the weekend - and probably the only offer she was going to get. Not that there wasn't a certain attraction in the thought of going home and just veging out. Still, some small part of her wanted to go out and do something, instead of sitting at home simply because the man she was seeing was otherwise occupied.

And she refused to let her mind speculate on what he was otherwise occupied with. Jack wasn't like that.

"O'Malleys?"

"Dinner," he said. "Meet you at the top in ten?"

Sam always kept at least one set of civvies on base, although she usually had more than one set. Tonight, she was lucky enough to have one leather jacket among the clothes neatly hung in her locker, along with a pair of blue jeans, and a red scoop-necked t-shirt. It wasn't fancy, but Sam wasn't dressing fancy. This was just dinner with someone who was really like a brother.

Still, it was a little worrying to reach the top and discover that he was wearing pretty much the same thing.

He shook his head as he glanced her over from head to toe. "I think we've passed out of the SGC and gone into the twilight zone," he muttered.

"Ya think?" Sam shook herself a little. "Where'd you find the clothing? Internet?"

Samuel gave her a brief glare. "Actually, mostly Daniel," he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Are you driving?"

"They haven't assigned you a vehicle yet?"

"Oh, they have. But since we're going to the same place, it seems silly to go in two cars."

"Well, I'm not driving you back." It was her form of a warning, and he grinned and spread his hands wide as they stepped out into the general parking lot.

"Okay, then," he said. "You leave your car here for the night, and I'll be the designated driver."

"But you're drinking," Sam objected.

He threw up his hands. "Jesus, I'm just suggesting solutions. I don't want to go in two cars, and you don't want to drive me back up here, so I figured that if you left your car up here, I can drive you down and come back and pick you up in the morning."

This was the first she'd heard of anything happening in the morning. Sam paused and eyed him. "Why the morning?"

"Because I need to find a place to live, a car, and case this town, and I don't want to do it by myself."

Sam was irked by the assumption that she'd want to help him with all this. "And what if I didn't want to help you find somewhere to live?"

Samuel shrugged, broad shoulders lifting and falling in a sign of insouciance that was oddly familiar, "Then I'll do it myself," he said. "But it's more fun with company. And were you doing anything tomorrow?"

She didn't answer that question, because she wasn't doing anything tomorrow. Instead, she led the way to her car, and climbed into the driver's seat, making no comment when Samuel slipped into the passenger seat and adjusted the chair so he could stretch out his legs.

"What happened to the Volvo?"

"Sold it," she shrugged. "It needed too much care and I wasn't on planet often enough."

"Or driving it," he murmured. "Did you sell it to that goth guy up in Denver as well?"

Sam looked away from the road, startled. "Yes."

"Tell me I wasn't the only one who thought he smelled."

"Oh, yes." Sam remembered the young man - about twenty or twenty one, wearing board shorts with lace-up boots. "He needed a wash."

"I'll bet he painted it black within a week," Samuel muttered. "I liked the purple."

Sam grinned. She'd thought exactly the same thing as she walked away from the sale. "Well, at least the Apache is in good hands."

"The collector out in Manitou Springs?" Samuel looked thoughtful. "I wonder if he still has it."

"You'd buy it back?"

"Hey, I don't have any other form of transport," he said as they wound their way down the last curve of the mountain and out into the main road towards the Springs.

The conversation turned into an argument over which used car lot was better, and whether he wanted a truck or a sedan. Sam nearly put her foot in it when she opened her mouth to ask if he was overcompensating for other deficiencies, and she was pretty sure he came close to putting his foot in it when she said that the sedan was a perfectly good car and got her around to all the places she wanted to go. Although he didn't actually say as much, she got the impression he thought the truck was macho. And if the next words out of his mouth had been, "Well, I guess it's okay for a woman..." he would have found himself walking the rest of the way to O'Malleys.

The conversation about vehicles gave way to his queries about the various parts of Colorado Springs through which they passed. Daniel would have found their comparison of memories fascinating if he'd been listening. Sam was a bit relieved that he hadn't yet found the time or the courage to corner them both and persuade them to answer his questions. Samuel had been here three weeks, and while she was dealing with his presence, she still could do with a little more time to get accustomed to the idea that she had a 'twin brother' wandering around the place.

Still, as she got out of the car in the parking lot of O'Malleys, Sam had to admit that she'd actually enjoyed the drive down. When it came to more generic topics she had no problem talking to Samuel. They shared anecdotes and comments on the things they remembered, and had a lot of opinions in common as far as the state of the world went.

It wasn't all that much of a surprise, she supposed. They'd had similar backgrounds, similar childhoods, and if it wasn't for her own personal insecurities, then she suspected she'd like him a lot more.

Conversely, for all that she knew that some of her reluctance to like him was her own problem, it only made her want to dig in her heels.

A chilly wind blew through the parking lot as they walked briskly to the door. She gave him a hard look when he held it open for her, but he had a look of perfect innocence on his face. 'Who me?' Sam called it when she saw it on Jack or Daniel's faces.

Men!

Inside the restaurant, it was warm and noisy, with most people congregating in the section where the bar was. There didn't seem to be a queue for the dining area, so they made their way through there directly, with Sam tugging on Samuel's sleeve when he got a longing look in his eye for a beer. "You can have one when the food comes," she told him.

"God, you sound like Mom when we went out to restaurants," he grumbled. "'You can have a drink when the food comes!'"

The comparison was momentarily surprising. Neither her Dad, nor Mark made much allusion to her mother. It was one topic that they'd never grown comfortable with discussing. She stared at him in surprise at being reminded of their mother. "I'd forgotten that."

He winced. "Actually, I'd forgotten it, too," he admitted. "But just then you sounded so much like her..."

Sam couldn't help the smile that twisted her mouth. "I am her daughter."

Samuel stared at her as though he never seen her before. "So I see."

A girl who looked entirely too young to work here came up at that moment, ready to lead them to their table. They were seated and handed menus. Samuel promptly ordered a beer, and Sam did likewise.

They even liked the same kind of beer.

He flipped through the menus, apparently unconcerned by the smiliarity of their choices. Sam couldn't be so sanguine about it. And other discomforts were making themselves known to her.

She was uncomfortably aware that most other groups of two in this restaurant were couples. Men and women who were romantically involved. She imagined how this would look if anyone she knew saw her sitting here, opposite Samuel, and tried not to grimace.

It's just like dinner with a friend, who happens to be male, she told herself. There's a reasonable explanation for it.

"Do you always think about the appearance of things?"

Sam met his gaze very directly and frankly. If it was possible, she'd suspect him of reading her mind. As it was, the replicator version of her had been the one to say that she knew exactly how Sam thought. And while Samuel was separate from Sam by a Y-chromosome, thirty-seven years and another universe, still there were some aspects of him in which she glimpsed parts of herself.

Perhaps she could almost understand Jack's disquiet.

Almost.

"I have to," she said, and was proud that there was no bitterness in her voice.

He leaned back in his chair, closing the menu. "Reputation, reputation, reputation, oh Iago, I have lost my reputation!"

She arched a brow back at him in return. "Othello?"

"I think it's the only line I know from the play," he admitted. "Daniel could probably quote you the whole thing."

"Actually, the General probably could quote quite a bit of it," Sam said before she could help herself. She hadn't been meaning to speak of Jack but now he was mentioned...

It was his turn to arch a brow. "How do you do that?"

"What?"

He rolled his eyes at her playing dumb. "Date a former commanding officer. Aren't there all kinds of problems involved in having an intimate relationship with someone you're used to having chew you out in the field?"

Sam knew her shoulders stiffened, and that he saw it. "I don't want to talk about this now."

"Would you ever want to talk about it?"

"Not to you."

His expression was a cross between exasperation and amusement. "Okay," he said, and hooked an arm over the back of the chair, looking around the room. "So, what other relationships have you had before...him? Boyfriends? Ex-husbands?"

There was no way on Earth or Netu that she was going to answer that question and she said as much to him.

But as it turned out, she didn't have to.

They were finished with dinner and he was trying to tempt her with the chocolate dessert. "If I can have it, you can have it. And don't give me any of that crap about needing to keep your figure, either."

Sam had opened her mouth to retort that she never allowed concern for her figure to dictate her eating habits, when someone paused by her table.

"Hey, Sam."

She looked up at a man she hadn't seen in three months and blinked with surprise. "Pete." Pause. "Hi." Another pause. "What are you doing here?"

It was more blunt than she'd intended, and she saw the frown that fluttered across his face.

It was something of a shock to see him here. He'd usually come down from Denver to see her, but she hadn't known that he had any friends in the area. And even more surprising was that he'd actually seen her and decided to come over and talk to her. While they hadn't ended with animosity - not exactly - Sam was well aware that she'd hurt him by first agreeing to marry him, then breaking it off when she realised she couldn't do it.

"Oh, just a guy retiring from the force," he said, jerking his head across the room to where a bunch of guys. "I partnered him up in Denver for a couple of years before he moved down here."

He lapsed into silence, looking from Sam to Samuel. It didn't take much for Sam to guess what Pete was thinking. It took even less to guess what Samuel was thinking. He was looking at Pete with a decidedly speculative gaze that turned into a slightly wicked grin.

It was, of course, Samuel who broke the silence. "Pete Shanahan?"

"Yes. And you are...?" He looked at Sam.

Samuel grinned and held out his hand. "Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Carter."

The quality of the silence was shocked. "I'm sorry, you said..."

"Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Carter. United States Air Force."

Pete reached for the most obvious explanation for the surname. "A cousin?"

"Uh..." He glanced at Sam. "Actually, no. It's long and complicated, and I suspect you don't have the classification anymore. But if it's any comfort, I nearly married you in another universe."

It was definitely not a comfort of any kind. Not if Pete's expression was any indicator. He went a little green and stared at Samuel as though the blond had grown antennae. "You nearly...?"

"Well, she was a Petra, actually," Samuel said, maliciously warming to his theme. "Good in the sack, but a little unhinged. Cop up in Denver, a bit paranoid. Possessive - had a tendency towards snuggling. Which could be nice sometimes, you know? But also embarrassing when I wasn't in the mood."

Sam wasn't sure whether she should laugh or cry. Either option was a possibility at this stage. Although she wouldn't have used quite the same words to describe her relationship with Pete, she had to admit that there were certain similaties.

In comparison, Pete mostly looked like Samuel had escaped from some kind of lunatic asylum. He turned to her. "Sam?"

Explaining this whole situation to him would be impossible. "It's an SGC thing," she said. "Think of him as my twin brother."

Samuel grinned. "Do I get to call you 'Sammie'?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," she said in the same soft and deadly tones she'd used as a child to let Mark know she wasn't kidding about kicking him where it would really hurt. Then she looked back at Pete who was looking decidedly revolted. "It was good to see you again, Pete," she said. The phrase was a sop to his pride, nothing more, but it mollified him enough in the polite lie that he nodded.

"Good to see you, too, Sam." Something flickered across his face, a kind of regret and envy, then he turned and walked away again.

At least Samuel waited until Pete was out of earshot before commenting, "You're well rid of that schmuck."

"He's not a schmuck," Sam defended.

"Sure he isn't," he scoffed. "You know, Petra was fun as long as I told her everything that went on in my life and was ready to jump at her tiniest whim. When I wasn't, she got sulky. Cute sulky, but still sulky - and I couldn't stand it."

"So how'd you end up engaged to her?" Sam asked. At least she had the excuse that Pete had been the one to do the asking.

Her counterpart shrugged. "One of the mysteries of the modern world, I guess," he said. "You think it's what people expect of you, so you do what's expected. And then you discover it's not what you expect of yourself."

Yeah, Sam remembered those feelings only too well.

Except now she was wondering about the expectations she'd put on her relationship with Jack. And she was feeling no better about the way this relationship was currently going than she had about where her relationship with Pete ended up.

Which was a little more than worrying.

At least she wasn't flinching when he kissed her. Of course, he hadn't kissed her in...well, over a week, come to think of it. She hadn't seen him in a week.

She just wished they were actually talking. Or hanging out. Or something.

Even something would be better than sitting in limbo, waiting for him to work things out.

Sam sighed and ran a hand through her hair, then realised Samuel was watching her with a wry expression on his face.

"Need a shoulder to cry on? Or just a drink?"

"Just a drink, I think," she said. Stiff upper lip, Sam. "And I'll be back in a minute."

She deliberately took her purse and cellphone with her. And in the women's restrooms she stared at the phone for a good minute before she hit the fastdial to Jack's cellphone.

"Carter." He sounded a little short-tempered, although she could attribute that to the noise in the background. It sounded like a bar of some kind. "This is a really bad time, you know."

The terse comment, with no 'how are you' or even so much as a 'look, I'm sorry about tonight' stiffened her spine. "That's okay, sir," she replied with professional cool, although she was holding onto her temper by the most slender of threads. "I'll talk to you another time, then."

"Carter, wait--"

Sam hung up and held the phone in her hand for a long, quiet moment, before she turned it off completely. If he called, she wasn't going to answer it. Then she shut her eyes and rested her forehead against her hands, and her elbows on her knees for another long moment, fighting the urge to cry.

It wasn't that she'd imagined everything would be rosy in her relationship with him. But things had been going so well before this, and now she just felt as though he'd closed the blast doors down on her, leaving her staring at an empty gateroom without any kind of welcome.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there, only that it wasn't until the restroom door opened to permit a gaggle of young women to enter the room that she remembered there was a man waiting for her back out in the restaurant.

Sam pushed past the chattering girls, and walked out the door with a stride that would have had any of her team-mates, past and present, running for the exits while the building still stood.

To hell with being Sam Carter. Tonight, she was going to be someone else for a change.

- TBC -