Firstly, I'd like to apologize for such long update intervals to all of you. Oh, the joys of starting school (and more specifically, high school. I have fallen in love with LOCKER lockers – you know, not the dinky boxes used for PE, actual locker lockers?). Anywho:) I'm trying.
And to clarify, in this sequel, Sam never met Pete. Yay! claps cheerfully
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Just as she was getting ready to walk out the door the following morning, the phone rang. Carter glared at it; wonderful. With her luck, it was probably Hammond telling her her clocks were three hours late, just to further her stress. Wasn't a massive headache enough?
Planning to take two extra strength Tylenols as soon as she got to the SGC, she picked up the phone, she forced herself to sound civil. "Carter."
"Do you have to answer your home phone like that?" asked a voice disgustedly.
Major Carter caught her groan and swallowed it. "Mark…" she sighed, "now's not a good time. I have to leave for work."
"Okay. Just two minutes is all I'm asking!"
Carter checked her wristwatch. "You have two minutes."
"Look," he began, "Pete's a real good guy –"
"Mark," she interrupted, "if that's what you're calling me about, you're wasting your breath. I'm not dating anyone."
"Exactly! So I was thinking –"
"That doesn't mean I'm free for the taking, Mark!" Major Carter argued. "I'm not interested in dating anybody!" Well, there's an exception to everything, she thought, picturing Ja – the Colonel, dang it! – in her mind. She was having a hard time thinking of him as purely her superior officer lately, especially with some rather NC-17 rated dreams she'd had… How she managed to look the man in the eye at all anymore surprised the daylights out of her!
"Sam, at least go out for a drink with him?" Mark pleaded.
"Mark, no. And the last time I checked my watch, you had one and a half minutes. Are you sure there aren't any other suitable bachelors you have plans for, because if there are, spit them out now. I won't listen later."
She knew she was being harsh, but this was the last thing she wanted or needed. It hurt her head enough to trust her heart about Jack – damn it, COLONEL O'NEILL – without listening to her brother's setup schemes.
There was a pause on the line. "I'm sorry to interrupt your morning, Major."
She opened her mouth to apologize only to hear a slam and a dial tone. Carter sighed, lowering the phone to its cradle, her eyes closed against the stress.
What a day, and it was only 0630.
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"Hey, Carter!" O'Neill said cheerfully as he strode into the briefing room with a bounce in his step. Carter winced at the volume.
"Hi sir," she replied weakly.
"How's the head?"
"Nail in the head feeling, sir," she said.
"Ah…" he said, a knowing, even sympathetic smile on his lips.
Daniel and Teal'c soon arrived for the briefing, and Sam tried to focus. It was going to be a long day…
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Do you even know why you like him? inquired her conscience as she took samples, Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c patrolling as usual. Even love him? the said conscience added.
Love?
Hey, this is you. Might as well be honest, said her conscience, echoing the illusions she'd had on the Prometheus.
Major Carter sighed. If I had the time, I'd give you a written essay, she told her nagging conscience irritably.
Then make a list, suggested her conscience.
Carter scooped more soil into a test tube. Number one: He makes me laugh, she decided.
Good, good, laughter is good.
Number two: He makes me feel safe. Three: Even though he spent all those years in black ops, he still isn't a part of the lunatic fringe like… She shuddered. …Hansen…
Good, good, not a lunatic. You're getting better at this love thing, approved her conscience.
She snorted to herself. Please. One word: regulations.
And in the immortal words of Colonel Hot-Ass, "Screw the regs!" said her conscience stubbornly.
Call him that one more time and I swear… Carter was pining enough without her naughty conscience swooning in the back of her mind, none too inconspicuously.
"Carter, you almost done?"
Even his voice is hot, murmured an extremely naughty conscience.
Shut up! Major Carter hissed at herself. "Yes sir," she replied lightly.
"Good. Meet you back at the 'Gate, ETA thirty minutes."
"Yes sir, Carter out," she agreed, packing away her samples and wandering into the temple ruins to drag a very engrossed Daniel Jackson away. "Sir?" she said into her radio.
"Here, Carter. What's up?"
"Brace yourself for shrill screaming, sir. I'm approaching Daniel and am going to attempt to disconnect him from the temple writings," she said with a smirk, her inner, evil conscience nodded approvingly in her mind.
"Funny, Sam," Daniel said with a buzz of life from her radio.
"I do believe your attempts at humor are beginning to grow on me, Carter," said Colonel O'Neill approvingly. She couldn't tell if it was a smirk or a playful grin in his voice, so she decided to put that particular thought aside for the moment.
"Thank you sir," she said wryly. "I'm immensely overjoyed to know I am gaining the approval of the Master of Dry Jokes."
"Watch it, Carter," he said lightly in warning. She snorted and reached Daniel, who was packing notebooks and loose sheets of paper hurriedly in his pack with a look of wistful sadness.
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When the briefing and the post-mission checkup had finally both been checked off Major Carter's list, she drove home in silence, not wishing to be interrupted by the radio. She was contemplating the complicated topic that was her superior officer, Jack O'Neill. Still.
She sighed and again her conscience bombarded her with a friendly reminder of sorts: Don't say you didn't warn yourself, it said pointedly. You knew that, if given the time and appropriate settings, you could fall in love with him. You knew that ever since the Hansen incident. It was your choice not to do something about it, right, wrong, or different.
Major Carter muttered irritably, "What was I supposed to do? Resign? What was I supposed to say? Was I to walk up to him and say, 'Sir, I'd like to thank you for all your support through this difficult time. I'd also like to inform you that, to repay you, I've gone and gotten inappropriate feelings for you. Can I kiss you crazy now?' Was that what I was supposed to have said?"
She pulled up to the sidewalk in front of her house and shut the motor off. It was nearing dusk; the brightness was fading from the skies and replacing it with a moody, purple-pink glow. Much like her mood.
Carter sighed one last time and gathered her things to bring into the house. She laid her purse, keys, and cell phone on the hall table and sorted through the mail she'd picked up on her way in.
"Junk, junk, junk…more junk!" Carter said shortly, irritated by her lack of a life. The best personal, not "I wanna sell you my crap" mail she ever got was birthday and Christmas cards from Mark and his family. Oh, and the annual lame birthday postcard from the dentist, featuring dancing teeth with party hats.
Of course, the most treasured cards she ever received were from Daniel, Teal'c, and Colonel O'Neill. Sam felt a little guilty at placing her team closer to her heart than Mark and her niece and nephew, but somehow SG-1 was a family in itself, a family that was beyond being simply a family – they had, cliché as it was to say, gone to hell and back together.
At first, receiving a card from Colonel O'Neill had been awkward, and she could tell he was uncomfortable, too. She remembered silently thinking the gods divine and false that she got a card for him along with Daniel and Teal'c, just in case. She and O'Neill had forcibly laughed it off, each claiming it was only to introduce Teal'c to the fine, Taur'i art of Christmas card-giving.
Major Carter smiled fondly at the memories. Her insides felt like they were both glowing with happiness and sickening with reality.
The Colonel wasn't hers, and it appeared that he never would be.