Prompt 3 - Candy Canes
Sam came into her lab and froze, something was off, someone had been in here. She frowned, no one should have been in here without her knowing. Everyone on base knew better than coming in without her permission, she just had too much stuff in here, some of which was dangerous, for anyone to risk it. Plus, back in the early days of the programme, one of the scientists had let themselves in to grab something and had broken one of Sam's machines. That had been the day when the members of the SGC had discovered that while Colonel O'Neill was a scary ex black ops solider, Samantha Carter in a bad mood made even him afraid. It had become one of the unofficial rules of the SGC, one that was told to every new member as part of their orientation, that Sam's lab was out of bounds to anyone who did not have the explicit permission of Sam.
Still standing in the doorway she scanned the room, trying to work out what was wrong. Nothing was out of place as far as she could tell, everything was still exactly where she'd left it the night before when she locked up to head home for the night, but she knew that something was wrong.
Slowly, she walked around the lab, trying to work out what it was. Her gaze fell on the new addition just as her brain registered what had clued her into something being wrong. There was a slight smell of peppermint in the air and she was now looking at the cause. Sat on her desk, right on top of her laptop so there was no way she could have possibly missed it, was a candy cane.
Sam frowned again. Why on earth was there a candy cane on her desk she wondered, and more importantly, who would have risked her wraith to put it there. A soft smile graced her lips as she moved closer and picked up the candy cane. She twirled it around her fingers a few times as she thought before she stuck it in her pen pot and sat down to work, ready to start the day.
For the rest of the morning, she didn't really think about it, she was too engrossed in her work, but as lunchtime rolled around Daniel appeared at her door.
"Lunch?" he suggested.
Sam looked up from her laptop and nodded. "Sure, just give me a minute to save."
Daniel nodded and lent against the wall to wait. "What's that smell?" he asked, "Is that peppermint?"
Sam nodded. "Yeah," she said as she got to her feet, "Someone left a candy cane on my desk this morning."
"Huh," Daniel commented, "That's a little weird."
Sam shrugged. "Yeah it is a little, but that was the only thing that was different when I came in this morning."
The two of them left the lab and Sam locked the door behind them. As they turned to head for the mess hall Daniel spoke again. "I didn't get one," he said, "And I haven't heard anyone else say that they got one."
"So?" Sam asked, not following Daniel's train of thought.
"Well," Daniel mused, "If you're the only person to get one then obviously you have a secret admirer or something."
"Really Daniel," Sam teased back, "I get one candy cane and your mind immediately jumps to a secret admirer?"
"Yep," Daniel said, "We both know plenty of the scientists have little crushes on you."
Sam scowled at him. "Not funny Daniel," she muttered, "Or true."
Daniel just raised an eyebrow in response. "Maybe one of them is who left your sweet treat," he said.
"It doesn't matter who it was Daniel," Sam told him, "And besides, it's only happened once, that's not enough evidence to draw any conclusions from."
Daniel hummed in agreement but Sam knew he wasn't going to drop it, that just wasn't his style. She was about to say something more when they both heard someone call their names.
They turned towards the voice and smiled as Jack and Teal'c walked towards them.
"Heading for lunch?" Jack questioned as they got closer.
"Yes sir," Sam responded with a smile.
"Excellent," Jack said, steepling his fingers together in an impression of Mr Burns.
Sam and Daniel both smiled while Teal'c watched on with his usual patient expression.
"So what's going on today kids?" Jack asked as they all walked towards the serving counter and started to pick up some food.
"I've got some really interesting artefacts that SG8 brought back from their last planet," Daniel began. He carried on talking about the various artefacts as they grabbed their food and then sat at a table. "Oh," Daniel then said, after he'd taken his first bite, "And Sam's got a secret admirer."
"Daniel!" Sam exclaimed quickly.
"Oh?" Jack asked, suddenly a lot more interested than he had been in what Daniel was saying.
"Yeah," Daniel said, glancing at Sam and deciding that he was far enough away from her that she wasn't going to be able to hurt him just yet, "Someone left a candy cane in her lab."
"That was brave," Jack muttered, smirking at Sam.
She glared back at him.
"What is a candy cane?" Teal'c asked Daniel. He'd been on Earth for a few years now but that was a new one for him.
"It's a type of Christmas sweet," Daniel explained, "It's peppermint flavoured with a little bit of vanilla. Usually, red and white striped and is in the shape of a cane."
Teal'c nodded in understanding while Sam stared at her plate, her cheeks slightly flushed. "Daniel's jumping to conclusions," she said finally, "It could have easily have been Cassie through Janet. You all know Cassie loves her sweets."
"What could have been me?" Janet asked. She had been walking past the table and had heard her name being spoken.
"Nothing," Sam said quickly.
"Someone left a candy cane in Sam's lab," Daniel explained, "I think it's a secret admirer, but Sam says there's not enough evidence to support that. She says it could just have easily been from Cassie."
Janet shook her head. "Well, it wasn't me," Janet told them, "Maybe you really do have a secret admirer Sam." Daniel moved along the bench slightly and Janet sat beside him. "I can think of any number of scientists who might have done it."
"Janet!" Sam exclaimed. She glanced quickly at Jack and Teal'c, wondering what their reactions would be. Not that she cared of course, they were all friends so it didn't matter what they thought about some of the scientists having crushes on her.
"So Carter's got some admirers amongst the geeks?" Jack asked, "I knew that Folger had a crush, didn't realise there was a lot of them." His tone was teasing and there was a sparkle in his eye as he held Sam's gaze.
"Felger sir," Sam reminded him softly, her voice barely hearable over Janet's answer.
"Oh yes," she teased, "I hear about it all the time, it's Major Carter this, Doctor Carter that."
Sam glared at her. She quickly finished her food and got to her feet. "I'm done," she told the table, "And I've got work to do."
Daniel and Janet both smirked at her. "Enjoy," Daniel said, "And why don't you try and work out who your secret admirer is?"
Sam rolled her eyes but didn't say anything in response as she grabbed her tray and headed over to deposit it with all the other empties, before heading out the room. She wasn't upset, she was just fed up with Janet and Daniel taking the mick. She knew why she was annoyed, it had something to do with a certain Colonel, but she couldn't look into that too deeply, not without causing a whole lot of trouble.
She got back to her lab and sat back down to work. As she worked through some of her paperwork her eyes found the candy cane again. She grabbed it and opened the wrapper and stuck one end in her mouth. As she worked she sucked on the candy, the taste reminding her of Christmas when she was a child. Today was the first of December and until now she hadn't really felt all that Christmassy, but this one simple sweet treat had changed that.
Over the next few days, every morning when Sam arrived in her lab there were more candy canes waiting for her. On the second there had been two, on the third three, and so on. It was now the seventh and there were seven new candy canes laid out on her desk waiting for her.
She smiled when she saw them and opened one immediately before she put the rest into a large pot that she had brought in from home especially for this purpose. The pot was getter fuller every day, she wasn't eating the sweets fast enough to keep up.
By the time the eighteenth rolled around Sam's pot was overflowing with candy canes and the smell of peppermint permeated the lab and even her BDUs. Daniel and Janet were still teasing her about it, but she'd gotten used to it now and was just ignoring them. She also knew that her candy cane leaving elf was a hot topic amongst the SGC staff, but no one seemed to know who it was.
As the month had gone on she'd had some ideas but hadn't managed to get any real proof to tell her for sure who it was. One morning she'd spent the night in her lab, working on a project that she wanted to get done, and she'd fallen asleep at her desk. While she'd been asleep someone had come into the lab and laid out that days candy canes around her, all without waking her up. At first, she'd found that a little creepy, but then she'd realised that actually it might be considered as sweet.
After that she'd set up some cameras, to try and catch whoever it was, but that hadn't worked either. Whoever it was seemed to know about the cameras and had avoided it by putting the candy canes in a different area that was out of the sightline of the camera. She'd then tried to put one up in the corridor outside her lab but that had been disabled.
She'd even spoken to Walter, to get him to show her the security footage from the official cameras that were in the corridor around her lab. They had shown slightly more, a dark dressed figure moving through the hallways, but whoever it was kept their head down and was wearing such shapeless clothes that Sam couldn't work out who it was.
But she was enjoying it so she just left it and stopped trying to catch them. Whoever it was was being sweet, and they were really helping with her sweet tooth.
The next morning, the morning of the nineteenth, when Sam walked in she knew that there was something different. There were a bunch of candy canes tied together and standing on her desk as a bundle, and Sam knew without counting that there would be nineteen of them, but what was different was the small note that was lent up against the bundle.
She quickly made her way to her desk and picked up the note. It was a folded piece of paper, with Sam written on the front. She didn't recognise the handwriting which she found a little odd, but she had decided days ago to just go with it so she opened the note even as she took her seat.
I hope you've been enjoying this little mystery she read And that it hasn't annoyed you too much. She smiled to herself. I know you have a sweet tooth so I thought I'd treat you for Christmas. Tomorrow will be the last day you get any though, as the base is being put on a skeleton crew for the holiday season, and you will not be allowed back on base. Sam frowned at that. This was news to her, and there were only a few people who could actually ban her from the base, and none of them had handwriting like this. So there will be twenty candy canes waiting for you tomorrow morning, and if you want to know who your secret admirer is then leave a note on your desk and I'll stick around here until you get in. Your secret admirer xxx
Sam looked up from the note. Did she want to know who had done all this or should she leave it as it was now, a mystery. She read the note, again and again, trying to work out who it could be, but she couldn't. For the rest of the day, she barely concentrated on her work as she debated on whether or not she should leave that note and find out who it was that had been leaving her candy canes for the last nineteen days.
By the time the end of her day rolled around she still hadn't decided. It was ultimately Janet who made the decision for her. She appeared at Sam's door to tell her it was time to go home.
"Sam," she greeted from the door, "We talked about this, you need to go home at a decent time today, I'm not letting you fall asleep in your lab again this week. You know it's not good for you."
"I know Janet," Sam said with a sigh, "Just let me finish up ok?"
"I'm not leaving until you do," Janet told her firmly.
"Janet," Sam said, "You need to get home to your daughter."
"Yes," Janet accepted, "I do. So hurry up or you can explain to Cassie why I'm late."
Sam rolled her eyes at the guilt trip but it worked. She saved her work and then started shutting down her laptop. She glanced at the note that was now sitting under the pot with all the candy canes in and, after hesitating for a fraction of a second, she grabbed her notebook and quickly wrote a note of her own. Wait for me she wrote. She left the note on the desk and then walked towards Janet, snagging a candy cane as she walked.
The two women walked to the locker room in silence and then headed up to the surface together. On the surface, they separated and headed for their own cars. Sam sucked on the candy cane as she drove home.
She had an early night, she wanted to get back to the base bright and early to see who her secret admirer was. It took her a while to drift off to sleep because she was nervous about the next day, but once she did eventually go to sleep she slept like a log until her alarm woke her in the morning.
Sam swallowed down a cup of coffee as she got ready but otherwise skipped breakfast, she just wanted to get back to the mountain. She drove a little quicker than normal, wanting to get to the mountain as fast as she could. She greeted the security politely but resented the extra time it added on to her reaching her lab.
She got changed into her BDUs and then hurried to her lab. She took a deep breath then opened the door and walked in. Her face immediately dropped. There were no new candy canes anywhere in the room, and there wasn't someone waiting for her. In fact, nothing had changed from how she'd left it the night before, her note was still where she'd left it.
She sighed and sat at her desk and rested her head on her hands. She was surprisingly disappointed that not only were her candy canes missing, but that her secret admirer also appeared to have not made it. She really had been looking forward to seeing who it was, but now it looked like she wasn't going to have the chance.
She sighed again and removed her head from her hands, intending to do some work. As she raised her head she realised that she was no longer alone in her lab, that someone had come in without her noticing.
"Hi sir," she said, trying to keep her voice light, but not entirely hiding her feelings of disappointment.
"Hey Carter," Jack replied, "What's up?"
"Nothing sir," Sam told him quickly.
She watched him as he came further into the lab, the door sliding shut behind him. She stayed quiet as he lent against the worktop beside her, his eyes flitting from her to the pot of candy canes until they finally came to rest on the note that she had written the night before.
"What's this Carter?" he asked, extending his hand towards it.
Sam quickly pulled it away from him. "Nothing sir," she said, "Just some ideas I was working on."
"Oh," Jack said, "Ok." He stared at her hard. "Wait for me seems like a weird idea."
Sam stayed silent and looked away, she didn't know what to say. Jack continued to stare at her for a moment before he pushed himself away from the bench. "I'll leave you to it," he said, heading back towards the door.
"Sir," Sam called after him.
"Hmm?" he asked, turning back to face her.
"Never mind," Sam said quickly. She had been intending to ask why he'd come to her lab this morning but right now she just wanted to be alone. She wanted to be able to wallow in self-pity for just a little bit before she had to do some work.
That thought however died almost as soon as she'd had it as Jack came back into the room, this time holding a box in front of him.
"Sir?" Sam asked.
Jack smiled at her. He waited for the door to slide shut again before he moved forward and put the box on the workbench. "You got in early," he said in a quiet voice, "And I got held up." He pushed the box towards her. "I was meant to get in here before you did and set this all up."
Sam took the box and slowly opened it. Inside were her twenty missing candy canes. She looked up from the box and caught Jack's eye. He looked more awkward than she had ever seen before.
"Thank you, sir," she said in a soft voice, "This really has been a great mystery."
Jack smiled at her. "I'm glad you liked it," he admitted, "On that first day with the teasing from Daniel and Janet I almost didn't carry on."
"I'm glad you did," Sam said quickly. She pulled out two candy canes and offered one to Jack. He took it from her and they both opened the packaging and started to eat them. "But why?" she asked him, "Why do this in the first place, Jack?"
Jack shrugged. "Because I could," he muttered.
"It's made the rumour mill go nuts," she said, "Everyone is trying to work out who's been leaving me the candy canes. I'm pretty sure that no one would have guessed you though."
"Some of them might have thought about it," Jack told her, "But I don't think anyone would have thought about it seriously, I do have a bit of a reputation for being a hardass."
"You do," Sam accepted with a smile, "But everyone thinks you have a soft spot for me so they might have thought it."
They stared at each other for a long moment. "Well they're right about one thing," Jack then muttered.
"Oh?"
"I do have a soft spot for you, Sam," Jack admitted.
Sam blushed at his words. They held each others gaze as they sucked on the candy canes.
"I should go," Jack then said, pushing himself up from where he'd been leaning against the worktop.
"Sir," Sam said quickly, "The note yesterday mentioned something about the mountain being put on skeleton staff for the holiday, and me being banned."
"Ah yes," Jack said, "That is because you are coming with me up to the cabin. I knew banning you from the mountain would make it easier for you to come."
"But I've got work I was going to do," Sam complained.
Jack shook his head. "You need to take a break Carter," he told her, "And since you're not going to your brother's this year you're coming with me to the cabin. Daniel, Teal'c, Janet, and Cassie are also coming if that makes you feel any better."
Sam sighed but Jack could see she was wavering. "Plus," he said, "You need to take some time off to eat your way through all those candy canes."
She laughed. "Sounds good sir." She stood and walked towards him. She held his gaze for a moment before she gently kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks for being my secret admirer Jack."
"Any time," he replied, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into a hug. She hugged him back, burying her head in his chest, smiling slightly at the hint of peppermint she could smell in his breath as he breathed down on her.